week 4

• Physical Vulnerability


  May be determined by aspects such as population density levels, remoteness of a settlement, the site, design, and materials used for critical infrastructure and housing
• Social Vulnerability


  • When flooding occurs, some citizens, such as children, elderly, and differently-abled, may be unable to protect themselves or evacuate if necessary
• Environmental Vulnerability

  Natural resource depletion and resource degradation are key aspects of environmental vulnerability
• Social Vulnerability


  Refers to the inability of people, organizations, and societies to withstand adverse impacts to hazards due to characteristics inherent in social interactions, institutions, and systems of cultural values
• Economic Vulnerability


  • Poorer families may live in squatter settlements because they cannot afford to live in safer (more expensive) areas
• Aspects of vulnerability

  • Poor design and construction of buildings
  • Inadequate protection of assets
  • Lack of public information and awareness
  • Limited official recognition of risks and preparedness measures
  • Disregard for wise environmental management
• Types of hazards

  • Natural: earthquake, landslide, tsunami, cyclones, extreme temperatures, floods, droughts
  • Biological: disease outbreaks including human, animal, and plant epidemics and pandemics
  • Technological: chemical and radiological agent release, explosions, transport and infrastructure failures
  • Societal: conflict, stampedes, acts of terrorism, migration, humanitarian emergencies
• Physical Vulnerability

  • Wooden homes are less likely to collapse in an earthquake, but are more vulnerable to fire
• Environmental Vulnerability


  • Wetlands, such as the Swamp, are sensitive to increasing salinity from seawater, pollution from stormwater runoff containing agricultural chemicals, eroded soils, etc.
• Economic Vulnerability


  The level of vulnerability is highly dependent upon the economic status of individuals, communities, and nations
• Indirect effects of exposure

  Additional consequences over time causing unsafe or unhealthy conditions from economic, infrastructure, social, health, and psychological disruptions and changes
• Groups with higher levels of vulnerability

  • People living in poverty
  • Women
  • Children and youth
  • Older people
  • People with disabilities
  • People with chronic illness or underlying health conditions
  • Migrants
  • Ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples
  • Sexual minorities
• Forms of hazards

  • Technological: chemical and radiological agent release, explosions, transport and infrastructure failures
  • Societal: conflict, stampedes, acts of terrorism, migration, humanitarian emergencies
• Vulnerability


  The likelihood that assets will be damaged/destroyed/affected when exposed to a hazard, highly dependent on the context of the hazard and shaped by individual factors, behaviors, history, politics, culture, geography, institutions, and natural processes
• Exposure


  The location, attributes, and value of assets important to communities that could be affected by a hazard
• Direct effects of exposure

  Injury, illness, other health effects, evacuation, displacement, economic, social, cultural, and environmental damages
• Populations are often talked about as being directly or indirectly affected by exposure
• Severity of effects

  • Primary Effects - direct situations arising from the disaster itself
  • Secondary Effects - situations resulting from the primary effects
  • Tertiary Effects - those felt some time after the disaster has occurred
• Hazards are a potentially destructive physical phenomenon