Disasters Midterm

Disaster

A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society at any scale due to hazardous events interacting with conditions of exposure, vulnerability, and capacity, leading to one or more of the following: human, material, economic, and environmental losses and impacts

What makes up a disaster vs an emergency?

Less common than emergencies, human casualties and property damage, interrupts ability of major community systems to function, disrupts only a single community, nearby communications and higher levels of govt can support response and recovery

What are the four ways to categorize a disaster?

Cause, type, time, and consequences

Type of disaster

classified by the kind of hazard that triggered it (natural hazards lead to natural disaster)

Cause of disaster

What were the sources of the crisis? The hazard combined with exposure and vulnerabilities that allowed the hazard to inflict the damage

Scale

The severity of the crisis, how serious its impacts were in human and material terms, its geographic spread (intensity, magnitude, or territorial spread of the effect)

Small scale disaster

A type of disaster affecting local communities that requires assistance beyond the affected community but more neighboring or regional in nature

Large scale disaster

A type of disaster affecting a society that requires national or international assistance

Level of scope

The range of different facets of everyday life a disaster can touch (what is the extent of community disruption?)

Rapid/sudden onset

Triggered by a hazardous event that emerges quickly or unexpectedly (earthquakes, volcanic eruption, flash flood, transport accident)

Slow onset

emerges gradually over time (drought, desertification, sea level rise, disease)

Consequences/impact

can be physical, demographic, economic, social, and political

Narrow scope emergency

Occurs regularly, response often by fire and police depts, EMS, and public works employees, using standard operating procedures

(house fires, vehicle accidents, medical crises, etc)

State of emergency

More severe, expands govt powers to manage a nationwide crisis, can impose measures like curfews, evacuations, road closures, restrictions on gathering, special orders. (COVID)

Emergency

Hazardous events that do not result in the serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society

What are the eight disaster subgroups?

Hydrological and Meteorological, Extraterrestrial, Chemical, Geological, Technological, Societal, Biological, Environmental

Hydrological and Meteorological

o   Convective and particle related

o   Wind/pressure related

o   Precipitation related

o   Pressure related

o   Water/marine related

o   terrestrial

Extraterrestrial

Space weather

Extraterrestrial

Chemical

o   Heavy metals and trace elements

o   Carcinogens

o   Toxic/asphyxiant gases

o   Persistent organic pollutants

o   Chemical hazards (food or pharmaceuticals)

Geological

o   Seismic

o   Volcano

o   Ground failure

Technological

o   Cyber hazards

o   Construction/industrial failure

o   Transportation accidents

o   Waste

o   radiation

Societal

o   Conflict

o   Post conflict

o   Behavioral

o   Economic

Biological

o   Infectious diseases (public health concern)

o   Animal diseases

o   Plant diseases

Environmental

Environmental degredation

Forestry degradation

What are the four elements of a complex humanitarian emergency?

Extensive violence and loss of life

Causes mass displacement of people

requires large scale multifaceted humanitarian response (intl)

often affects children and women civilians most

What are the four ways we can categorize disasters?

geological events (volcano, earthquake, etc. rapid onset)

biological events (epidemics, epizootics)

meteorological events-hydrological events (storms, floods, droughts, etc.)

famine (demographic consequences)

What is the difference between disaster scale and scope?

Scope is the range of different facets of everyday life a disaster can touch, scale is the intensity of the magnitude, or territorial spread of the effect for each of the facets touched

What are the differences between emergencies, disasters, and catastrophies?

-          Emergencies = events primarily managed locally using existing plans and procedures to address relatively limited impacts and needs

-          Disasters = have more impacts and needs, require participation from many more organizations, and necessitate more complex procedures and plans than those used in an emergency

-          Catastrophes = widespread impacts and needs covering a large geographic area. Local and national orgs are overwhelmed, regional and international assistance is needed but slow to arrive. Existing plans and procedures are insufficient and extensive improvisation and outside leadership is required.

What are the defining components of a disaster?

o   Is it the triggering event itself?

o   Is the triggering event a sufficient measure? For instance, an earthquake without accounting for all human-induced exposure and vulnerability, leading to risk?

o   Is it the event’s consequences that we seek to reduce the risk of?

o   How profound do the societal consequences need to be to rise to the threshold of a disaster?

o   Is it both? Should there be more elements?

o   Should it be defined by each community or can we set a global standard?

Catastrophe

Has a large scale and scope of impact

event that usually affects multiple communities

produces very high levels of damage and social disruption

sharply and concurrently interrupts community and lifeline services

broad scope of impact impairs communities’ response systems and greatly limits extra community support

Complex Humanitarian Emergency

combo of both natural and human generated causes

Marked by total or considerable breakdown of authority resulting from internal or external conflict/threats

requires an intl response that goes beyond the mandate or capacity of any single agency and/or ongoing UN program

Characterized by

Extensive violence and loss of life, Population displacement, Widespread damage to societies and economies, Need for large scale multifaceted humanitarian assistance,  Hindrance or prevention of humanitarian assistance by political and military constraints, Significant security risks for relief workers on the ground

Compound disaster

Where many different agents acted together to make things worse

Why is it important to understand compound disasters?

Risks of these disasters are escalating as human influence on climate and environment grow

What are the two cognitive systems that humans have?

one that governs automative and instinctive thoughts

One that governs our more controlled thoughts

What was the most common type of disaster based on percentage of occurrence?

Floods (44%)

What were the top three countries impacted measured by the occurrence of disasters?

China, the Us, and India

What were the top three disasters by death toll?

Indian Ocean Tsunami, 9.1 Earthquake in Haiti, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar

What is a mega disaster?

an event that kills more than 100.000 people

Which type of disaster has affected the greatest number of people?

Flood

Which type of disaster has caused the greatest number of deaths?

Earthquake

Which continent dominates when examining absolute number of people affected?

Asia

Which continent dominates when examining most affected per 100,000 inhabitants?

Africa

Which continent dominates when measuring absolute death tolls?

Asia

Which type of countries have lower numbers of people affected and killed by disaster events, but suffer greater economic losses?

High income countries

Which type of countries have limited economic losses but higher death tolls?

Low income countries

Which countries account for the most disaster events, deaths and total people affected and why?

Lower middle and upper middle income countries

Which type of countries have a high level of economic impact compared to GDP?

Low-income countries

Which three countries have experienced the greatest total economic loss?

Dominica, Cayman Islands, and Haiti?

Cascading disasters

Extreme events where cascading effects increase in progression over time and generate unexpected strong impact secondary events.

What do cascading disasters result from?

o   Failure of physical structures and critical facilities that populations depend on

o   Failure of disaster mitigation strategies:

Evacuation procedures

Emergency management capacity

Land use planning

Hitting vulnerable populations

Compound disaster

Many different agents and sources act together to make a disaster event much worse than it would have been otherwise (or wouldn’t have happened at all)

What influences a compound disaster?

Climate change, Natural weather patterns, Local conditions, Changes to local environment, Human activities (or lack thereof)

Cognitive systems

How human beings make decisions under conditions of risk and how these decisions make things worse

#1: Automated and instinctive perceptions of risk, emotions and instinct, fast, reflexive, and unconscious

#2: More controlled thoughts, using system #1 perceptions to make decisions, controlling emotions and instincts

Six core decision making biases in disasters

Myopia, Amnesia, Optimism, Inertia, Simplification, Herding

Myopia

focus on an overly short future time horizons when appraising immediate costs and the potential benefits of protective investments

Amnesia

to forget too quickly the lessons of past disasters

Optimism

to underestimate the likelihood that losses will occur from future hazards

Inertia

to maintain the status quo or adopt a default option when there is uncertainty about the protentional benefits of investing in alternative protective measures

Simplification

to selectively attend to only a subset or the relevant facts to consider when making choices involving risks

Herding

to base choices on the observed actions of others

Risk

the likelihood of loss of life, injury or destruction and damage from a disaster in a given period of time

What three components make up disaster risk?

Hazards, exposure, and vulnerability

Entensive risk

Extensive risk is associated with high-probability, low impact events.

associated with highly localized hazards like flash floods, storms, fires, drought

Intensive risk

Associated with low probability, high impact events (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tropical cyclones)

Usually happen where there is exposure of large concentrations of people and economic activities to intense hazard events

potentially catastrophic with high mortality and asset loss, strongly aligns with poverty patterns

has regional or global interest/response

Hazard

An event, process, phenomenon, or human activity that may cause loss of life/injury, social and economic disruption, property damage, environmental degradation

Why do we care about Extensive risk?

Accumulated losses from small and recurrent events

Lower mortality, but causes 42% or more of total economic losses in low- and middle-income countries.

Higher morbidity (disease and illness)

More displacement

Contributes to poverty

Anthropogenic

Human contributions to hazards:

• Environmental degradation

·       Deforestation

·       Soil degradation through farming practices

·       Ground water depletion

·       Pollution (air and water)

• Rapid urbanization

• Land use planning/development

• Burning of fossil fuels (a major-bit not only-culprit of climate change)

Vulnerability

the human dimension of disasters,

The characteristics determined by physical, social, economic, informational, and environmental factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets, or systems to the impacts of the hazards.

Compare the risk factors:

o   Hazard: what potentially harmful event or process could occur?

o   Exposure: Who or what is located where it could cause harm?

o   Vulnerability: How susceptible are those exposed to people or assets to harm?

Exposure

The situation of people, infrastructure, housing, production, capacities, and other tangible human assets located in hazard prone areas

What human factors is exposure shaped by?

Development in flood planes

coastal construction

urban expansion

location of critical infrastructure

Alternate terms around vulnerability and why we must be careful

Susceptibility and predisposition, other terms such as fragility can take away from a vulnerable group’s dignity

The five types of vulnerability

Physical, social, economic, environmental, informational

Physical vulnerability

The physical characteristics of a building or facility determine how easily it may be damaged by the hazard, limited access to safe housing and resilient infrastructure

Ways to reduce physical vulnerability

§  Building codes

§  Retrofits: modifications to an existing building or facility to make it safer or more resistant to hazards

·       Ex: earthquakes: reinforcing walls and foundations

·       Floods: Elevating electrical systems or installing flood barriers

·       Hurricanes: installing impact resistant windows

·       Wildfires: replacing flammable roofing

§  Safer construction

§  Resilient infrastructure

Social vulnerability

Social exclusion/discrimination based on: Gender, disability, Age (young and elderly), mental health, Legal documentation status, racial identity

Social isolation and limited support networks

Limited access to transportation, healthcare, and emergency assistance

Ways to reduce social vulnerability

Inclusive planning

accessible evacuation

community networks

targeted support

Economic vulnerability

o   Poverty and limited financial resources

o   Lack of insurance or savings

o   Dependence on a single employer, industry, or crop

o   Insecure livelihoods and fragile supply chains

o   Ex: how COVID transformed economics

How to reduce economic vulnerability

Social protection programs

accessible insurance programs

diversified livelihoods

targeted recovery assistance

Informational vulnerability

o   Warnings unavailable in relevant languages or accessible formats

o   Limited internet, phone, or communication access

o   Low trust in official information

o   Confusing or untimely emergency messages

How to reduce informational vulnerability

Multilingual alerts

accessible formats

multiple communication channels

trusted community messengers