1. Adjustment to Hazards and Disasters
GEOG 558
Hazards and Risk Management
Dr. Chrys Rodrigue

2. What to Do about a Perceived and Understood Hazard?
How society or an individual copes with hazard is called “adjustment to hazard”
Ideally: loss reduction through mitigation and preparation
Much cheaper in the long run than repeating the event-response-restoration-reconstruction drill
Human and social adjustment to hazard is not very straightforward, given everything on all our plates

3. Influences on Individual Adjustment
Affected by:
Experience
Experience gives people more accurate perceptions
Especially effective seems to be loss of property
Wealth
More money, more wherewithal to pay for insurance and other mitigations and they have more at risk
But previous work suggests that wealthy people are somewhat less likely to have insurance
Maybe confidence in ability to command social resources?
Personality
Risk tolerance, confidence, laziness
Fatalism and religious attitudes

4. Adjustments Available
Just accept the loss or take responsibility
Modify the loss burden/share the loss around
Disaster aid
Can be uneven, arbitrary
The “golden hours”
Can be inappropriate and ineffective
Which “normalcy” are we restoring?
Insurance
Buying insurance or expecting government help?
Insurance can be very expensive
Moral hazard and adverse selection issues

5. Adjustments Available
Modify the event
Society, let alone, individuals are a little puny compared to quakes, tsunami, hurricanes
We have a little bit of influence over flood and fire
But mitigations against frequent low-magnitude events can set us up for the much rarer, much more powerful event
River levées, dams vs. silting
Firefighting vs. growing fuel

6. Adjustments Available
Modify human vulnerability: Mitigation
Modify how structures transmit forces to humans
Planning and zoning
These generate political resistance and sabotage
Good codes undermined by cut-corner construction
Corruption of inspection
Laziness and cost aversion: Mitigations can be very expensive and disruptive
Individuals can mitigate risk:
Non-structural mitigations
Structural mitigations

7. Adjustments Available
Preparation/preparedness
Pre-arranged and pre-practiced
Household level
Agency level (ICS, scenarios, drills)
Evaluating and selecting evacuation routes/centers
During mitigation and preparation phases
Also, on the fly as an emergency situation evolves
Depiction? GIS? Remote sensing?
Triage

8. Adjustments Available
Preparation/preparedness
Risk assessment
Prediction (constrains timeframe)
Forecasts (about magnitude, duration/timing, location, but no suggestions about actions)
Warnings (the forecast, but with recommended actions)
Public education
Sharing scientific risk assessments
Predictions
Risk communication
Top-down warnings and what-to-do
Bottom-up: Individuals are information-seekers