Population Impact of Natural Disasters By: Emma Feldman, Connor Dugall, Zach Luton, and Cameron Slate Population Impact of Natural Disasters

Summary of the issue When a natural disaster is about to occur, government officials in more developed countries are responsible for informing the people of what precautions to take. In less developed countries with disorganized populations and governments, people don’t know how to protect themselves during a natural disaster. Since there is no prevention for a natural disaster, a solution is to improve communication systems. Most people do not want to live in a society of preparedness, since this notion results in people contemplating their own mortality. So when a natural disaster occurs, people have no methods for protecting themselves, resulting in a massive amount of deaths. A solution to this problem is increasing awareness of natural disasters, informing populations of specific precautions to take, encouraging people to purchase emergency kits for when disaster strikes, and making these emergency kits more affordable, so people in less developed countries can have them, too.

Examples of natural Disasters Hurricane Wildfire Tornado Avalanche Earthquake Tsunami Volcano

How this connects to population Natural disasters can… Increase CDR Displace citizens Overpopulate relocation centers Destroy property, leading to population impact

Papua new guinea New Guinea is one of the world’s most famous LDCs. To the left is a population pyramid of the country: it is obvious that they have a very low life expectancy, since their population does not contain many people above the age of 50. A contributing factor to New Guinea’s low life expectancy is they don’t have the proper medicine and health care for people of old age. It has a dependency ratio of 68.2% (the amount of people not in the labor force), and a total fertility rate of 3.24 (the amount of children a woman has). Since Papua New Guinea is a less developed country, their literacy rate (the amount of people over the age of 15 that can read and write) is 62.4%. They also have poor sanitation- food and waterborne illnesses such as bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever are very common. Dengue fever and malaria are common diseases in New Guinea, as well.

Volcanism in Papua new guinea New Guinea is located on the Pacific coast in the Ring of Fire. New Guinea is subject to severe volcanos. One of their most dangerous volcanos is called Ulawun, and it has recently been named a decade volcano, which means it’s very large and destructive. Due to New Guinea’s underdevelopment, their communication systems are very weak. If Ulawun erupts again soon, the people of New Guinea will be in a predicament, since they have no safety precautions.

Aftermath of hurricane Katrina When government officials informed the people of New Orleans of how severe the storm was, people brushed it off and chose to ignore the evacuation order. After the hurricane occurred, New Orleans was left with tons of damage. People in this region are still recovering from the disaster. This incident has made people realize the importance of preparation methods. The storm has also put emphasis on trusting government officials.