Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

Definition of hazard

A potential threat to humans and their welfare arising from a dangerous phenomenon or substance that may cause loss of life, injury, property damage, and other community losses or damage

Damages (both in life and damage costs) are…

Increasing

The term natural hazards tend to focus on…

extreme, single-events, rapid-onset events caused by physical earth processes, but hazards can also be slow acting (drought)

Involuntary hazard

A hazard that is out of your control (earthquake, asteroid strike, tsunami, etc.)

Voluntary hazard

A hazard that you have control over and deem is worth the risk (Air pollution, transportation accidents)

What hazard accounts for the majority of disaster-related deaths

earthquakes

What hazard leads to a third of disaster-related deaths

Drought (link to famine and displacement)

What hazard causes more deaths than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes, in the US annually

Extreme temperatures (heatwaves)

What hazards occur the most frequently

Floods and Storms

Out of all hazard events what percentage are made up by floods and storms

~70%

Disaster definition

A serious disruption to functioning of community/society at any scale, involving losses/impacts due to a hazardous event 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 a hazard event into a disaster event

When the hazard impacts human lives, damages economic and social/cultural assets, damages the environment

Issue with focusing on number of deaths caused by a disaster

It does not fully capture the complexity of the loss and doesn’t include job losses, livelihood degradation, secondary health impacts

Hazard and disaster assessment and action must be…

interdisciplinary

Equation for risk

Risk = Hazard (probability/likelihood) x consequence

OR

Risk = Hazard x exposure (or vulnerability/resilience)

Exposure definition

The location, attributes and value of assets that are important to communities (e.g. people, infrastructure, factories, businesses, public resources, and land) that could be affected by a hazards

Adaptive Capacity definition

The combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available within an organisation, community or society to manage an and reduce disaster risks and strengthen resilience.

Vulnerability definition

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

Resilience definition

The ability of a system, community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to, transform and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner