countries' vulnerability

What is vulnerability?

The characteristics determined by factors or processes which increase the susceptibility of an individual, a community, assets or systems to the impact of hazards.

There are different factors that can make a country more vulnerable to natural disasters, and these can be split up into 4 categories: economic, social, environmental and political.

  • lack of insurance

  • Single industry dependence

  • Poverty

  • disability

  • Discrimination

  • unsafe/ lack of building codes

  • Lack of control on urban span

  • Naturally exposed to hazards

  • Environmental degradation

  • Destruction of mangroves

  • Deforestation

Why is Europe, North America and the Middle East less vulnerable than other places?

There are several high income countries in the listed places so they have a better chance at preparing for and repairing after a natural disaster. Additionally, the sea is not warm enough in most of the oceans surrounding these areas for tropical storms and they are not located near plate boundaries for earthquakes or volcanoes. Furthermore, there are a lot of low income countries in other areas of the world like Africa and Asia. And in terms of physical features the inverse is true for many other places.

The following are factors and explanations of how they create more or less vulnerability:

Natural environment - rock type, coastline, ocean temperature and relation in regards to plate boundaries all effect the formation of natural disasters.

Levels of wealth - HICs can spend money and invest into disaster management and preparedness, lowering risk.

Building codes - it lowers the vulnerability if a country has buildings and structures that can withstand natural disasters.

Access to technology - HICs can afford technology to help them predict events and also to alert people of the natural disaster easily.

Insurance cover - if there is little access to insurance people will struggle to get compensation after a disaster leading to poverty and more vulnerability.

Education - education about the risks can help lower risk. Learning about contaminated flood water and earthquake drills can save many lives.

Gender - some women may not have learnt to swim or must be responsible to look after their children alone.

Population density - the greater the concentration of people in an area the more people at risk, also a large group is harder to evacuate.

Age - the elderly may not physically be able to escape as fast as younger but extremely young people rely on adults to help them which could put them at risk.