Hazards, vulnerability, risk, resilience, disaster

• The four stages of the PAR model are: predisaster, impact, relief and reconstruction
• Some insurers define a disaster as an economic loss of over $1.5 million
• Degg's Model shows the interaction between hazards, disaster and human vulnerability. A disaster only occurs when a vulnerable population is exposed to a hazard.
• Risk

  • Unpredictability - many hazards aren't predictable and people can be caught out by either the timing or magnitude of the event
  • Lack of alternative - people stay in a hazardous are due to lack of options could be for work, lack of space to move or lack of skills/ knowledge
  • Dynamic hazards - threat from hazards isn't constant, may increase or decrease over time, human influence can also change the location or increase the frequency or magnitude of hazardous events
  • Russian roulette - acceptance that risks are somethiing that happen whatever you do
• The Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) states a hazard becomes a disaster when 10 or more people are killed and/or 100 or more people are affected
• Resilience is the ability to 'spring back' from a hazard event or disaster and according to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) the resilience of a community in terms of potential hazard events is determined by whether the community has the necessary resources and is capable of organising itself both prior to and during times of need
• Disaster Risk and Age Index

  • ageing populations
  • the acceleration of risk in a world that is increasingly exposed to a range of hazard types

  Children and elderly are likely to suffer more from a range of hazards. Around 70% of the world's population who are over 60 live in less developed regions - this is expected to rise to 80% by 2050.
• Myanmar vs Japan (disaster age risk)

  • Hazard and exposure - Myanmar, very high natural hazard risk due to tsunamis and earthquakes - Japan, very exposed to lots of natural hazards
  • Vulnerability - Myanmar, has low score, few hazards in recent years - Japan, high score due to ageing population
  • Coping - Myanmar, poor at coping as low connectivity and poor education - Japan, good at coping, high education and connectivity, capable governemnt
  • Overall - Myanmar 7/190 so disaster risk to elderly is very high - Japan, 133/170 as strong coping capacity and little vulnerability
• Japan - ageing population statistic

  • 2011 tsunami killed 15,000 and 9500 were injured or missing; 56% of people who died were 65 and over eventhough that age group was only 23% of the population in that area
• Social impacts of tectonic hazards

  • The impacts of earthquakes (and linked secondary effects) are generally much greater than those presented by volcanoes.
  • The narrow concentration of volcanoes means that a relatively small proportion of land area and human population of the world is close to a volcano
  • Less than one per cent of the world’s population is likely to experience risk from volcanic activity, whereas the figure for earthquakes (directly) is estimated to be five per cent, rising when including secondary impacts as well
• Economic impacts of tectonic hazards

  • Economic impacts are roughly proportional to the land area exposed to the relevant hazard
  • Again, the earthquake hazard wins out
  • Need to be set in context eg: level of development, degree of urbanisation, impacts on GDP, total people affected, speed of economic recovery (a measure of resilience)