What Are Natural Hazards?

• Natural hazards are sudden, severe events which make the natural environment difficult to manage
• Natural hazards disrupt human life, and have huge economic and social impacts
• Natural hazards do not pose a theat to people if they occur in unpopulated regions
• Where natural hazards cause high levels of death, injury, damage or disruption they become natural disasters
• Hazard risk means the chance of being affected by a natural hazard
• People live in risky areas because they:

  -Accept the risk, after weighing up the advantages and disadvantages

  -Have no knowledge of the dangers

  -Have little choice of where to live
• As populations grow, more people are exposed to natural hazards
• Factors that increase risk

  Urbanisation - densely-populated urban areas concentrate those at risk
• Factors that increase risk

  Poverty - shortage of housing leads to building on risky ground
• Factors that increase risk

  Farming - the attraction of fertile silt on floodplains puts people at risk
• Factors that increase risk

  Climate change - global warming raises sea levels and generates more extreme weather