Dangeorous Earth - Week 1 (Course Introduction and Key Concepts in Hazard and Risk Science)

What is a hazard?

Anything that has the potential to cause harm/damage to people, property or the environment.

Natural Hazard

A naturally occurring process or phenomenon that may cause loss of life, injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation.

What are the 3 categories of natural hazards?

1) Hydrometeorological/climatic: associated with weather (ex// cyclone, flood, storm, drought, wildfire)

2) Geological/Geophysical: movement of Earth (ex// earthquake, tsunami, volcano, landslide)

3) Biological (ex// pandemic)

When does a natural hazard become a natural disaster?

When it has significant impacts on a community - like widespread damage, loss of life, disruption to essential services

Disaster

A serious disruption to a community’s functioning, causing widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses that exceed the community’s capacity to cope using its own resources.

They are a product of hazards and vulnerability.

Can a disaster ever really be natural?

While events like earthquakes, floods and hurricanes are natural phenomena, whether they become disasters depends on human factors (ex// where and how we build, preparedness, response capabilities). There are natural disasters but resulting disasters are often a product of human choices and vulnerabilities. Hence, disasters are a product of hazards and vulnerabilities.

Disaster classifications based on their onset:

1) Slow onset: enable warnings and better preparedness (ex// cyclone)

2) Fast onset: little or no warning, often more damaging and requires pre planning and mitigation (ex// earthquake)

Emergency

Similar to disaster but doesn’t exceed community’s ability to respond.

When does a disaster become a catastrophe?

When even with outside help, the damage and fatalities are not significantly impacted.

How has disaster management evolved in Australia?

Disaster management has evolved from reactive emergency response to proactive disaster risk reduction.

What are the steps of the disaster management cycle that Aus follows?

1) Prevention & Mitigation: reducing the likelihood/consequences of disasters

2) Preparedness: planning, training and educating communities

3) Response: protecting life and property during emergency

4) Recovery: restoring communities