1. Hazards Planning and Risk Management INTRODUCTION TO HAZARDS
Lecture No. 01
INTRODUCTION TO HAZARDS
Fall 2016
US – Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Water

2. Learning Objectives
To become familiar with the subject related terminologies, definitions, prevailing theories, and basic concepts

3. What is meant by a Hazard?
A dangerous condition or event, that threats or has the potential for causing injury to life or damage to property/environment

4. Definitions: Hazards
A potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human activity that may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. (UNISDR)
The probability of occurrence within a specified period of time and within a given area of a potentially damaging phenomenon" (UNDRO, 1991).
UNISDR - United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction
UNDRO - United Nations Disaster Relief Organization

5. Hazard Categories Two main categories Natural Manmade
Caused because of natural processes or phenomena within earth system
Manmade
Due to human negligence
Some are Socio-natural
Both natural and manmade
Flood may be due to both excessive rain and change in land use practices

6. Examples Geological hazards Water & climatic Environmental
Earthquake
Volcanic eruption
Tsunami
Landslide
Floods
Droughts
Cyclone
Environmental pollution
deforestation
Forest fire
War
Industrial accidents
Oil spills
etc
Geological hazards
Water & climatic
Environmental
Manmade or technological
Note: forest fire may also be accident related hazard
Chemical, industrial and nuclear accidents: oil spill/fires
Erath system: (lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere or atmosphere) "lithosphere" (land) or geosphere, "hydrosphere" (water), "biosphere" (living things), and "atmosphere" (air)
Manmade or technological: also infrastructure failure
Note: These categories are not mutually exclusive

7. What do you think about Global warming?
Is this a hazard?
If so, then what type of hazard – environmental or manmade or … ?
Global warming and temperature rise may cause many other hazards – like?
Glacier retreat, floods, droughts, forest fire, hurricanes, cyclones, etc.

8. Hazard Spectrum (Jones, 1993)
quasi-natural . (landslide due to road cutting, dust storm due to over grazing, flood due to dam failure, etc.)
If human activity has caused the natural hazard then it can be classified as a quasi-natural: Examples???
Na-tech: natural hazards triggering technological Disasters: Examples??

9. Disaster?

10. Meaning of the word ‘Disaster’
Meaning has changed through times
In early usage it had reference to unfavorable or negative effects, usually of a personal nature, resulting from a star or a planet (E. L. Quarantelli)
“we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon and stars” - Shakespeare, King Lear-Act I, Scene 2,
Sir Slingsby, writing in his diary in 1684, that, “I am very ill of a disaster upon my stomach.”
Source:

11. Later the term ‘Natural’ substituted for the term ‘Supernatural’
Then there came a time when the word disaster was applied to major physical disturbances such as
earthquakes and
floods
or what traditionally known as the Acts of God (supernatural)
Later the term ‘Natural’ substituted for the term ‘Supernatural’
In recent decades notion of “Acts of Men” going along with Acts of God or natural disasters
Some social scientists phrased disasters as the manifestations of the vulnerabilities of social systems
Source:
Interactive effect of nature and society.
Thus, while the notion of disaster as being something of an undesirable happening has prevailed from the beginning, there also have been the indicated changes about the perceived source of the problem going from the stars, to God, to nature, to men and women, and now to society.

12. Disaster?
Sudden adverse or unfortunate extreme event which causes great damage to human being as well as plants and animals
Either
natural or manmade
from intense to diffuse
predictable to unpredictable
Disaster occurs:
Rapidly
Instantaneously
Indiscriminately
Range from intense to diffuse (isolated events with wide and unrecognized temporal and spatial distribution e.g. diffuse epidemic) predictable to unpredictable
Indiscriminately: at random, arbitrarily, haphazardly, by chance
(earthquake, tsunami, landslide, etc.) (soil erosion, land degradation, glacier retreat, desertification, etc.)

13. Disaster? Severity varies and can be measured in absolute terms:
Deaths
Economic damages
Number of people affected
Impact depends on capability of area to absorb the destructive effects
An event causing disaster at local level may not be impacting at regional level
Economic disaster depends on the ability at jurisdictional level to deal with the financial consequences.
Economic Loss in terms of: loss of 1% GNP
People dead: include those confirmed as dead and missing and presumed dead
People affected: need immediate assistance during a period of emergency.

14. Disaster - Definition by the United Nations
A serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources (UNISDR)
Source:
Disaster impacts may include loss of life, injury, disease and other negative effects on human physical, mental and social well-being, together with damage to property, destruction of assets, loss of services, social and economic disruption and environmental degradation.

15. Disaster
A disaster occurs when a significant number of vulnerable people experience a hazard and suffer severe damage and/or disruption of their livelihood system in such a way that the recovery is unlikely without an external aid. (Blaikie, 1994)
A situation or event, which overwhelms local capacity, necessitating a request to national or international level for external assistance; an unforeseen and often sudden event that causes great damage, destruction and human suffering (CRED)
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED). CRED’s database is EM-DAT. International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)
Source:

16. EM-DAT: The International Disaster Database
Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED)

17. EM-DAT
EM-DAT provides geographical, temporal, human and economic information on disasters at the country level.

18. EM-DAT Screenshots Examples of database: Profiles and Trends
Examples of database: Profiles and Trends

22. Any comment on these trends?

24. Any comment on these trends?

26. Exercise Go to the database and determine
Historically which disaster type caused more
Total Deaths?
Total affected?
Total damages?
You will find out that the answers to 1, 2, and 3 would not be the same.
Do you have any explanation for this difference?

27. Home Assignment
Explore further at

28. EM-DAT Criteria
EM-DAT includes all disasters from 1900 until the present, conforming to at least one of the following criteria:
10 or more people reported killed
100 people or more reported affected
declaration of a state of emergency
call for international assistance.
The number of people killed includes people confirmed as dead and those missing and presumed dead. People affected are those requiring immediate assistance during a period of emergency (i.e., requiring basic survival needs such as food, water, shelter, sanitation and immediate medical assistance). People reported injured or homeless are aggregated with those reported affected to produce a ‘total number of people affected’.

29. Disaster Classification
Natural Disasters
biological disasters: insect infestations, epidemics and animal attacks (the last two categories are not considered in the World Disasters Report)
geophysical disasters: earthquakes and tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, dry mass movements (avalanches, landslides, rock falls and subsidence of geophysical origin)
climatological disasters: droughts (with associated food insecurities), extreme temperatures and wildfires
hydrological disasters: floods (including waves and surges), wet mass movements (avalanches, mud/landslides, rock falls and subsidence of hydrological origin)
meteorological disasters: storms
meteorological disasters: storms (divided into nine sub-categories)

30. Disaster Classification
The Technological Disasters comprise three groups:
industrial accidents: chemical spills, collapse of industrial infrastructure, explosions, fires, gas leaks, poisoning, radiation
transport accidents: transport by air, rail, road or water
miscellaneous accidents: collapse of domestic/non-industrial structures, explosions, fires

31. Disaster vs. Hazard
Hazard is a danger that a disaster event may develop
A disaster is a function of the risk process
Risk results from the combination of
exposure to a hazard,
conditions of vulnerability and
insufficient capacity or measures to reduce the potential negative consequences of risk.
A hazard may cause a disaster to a vulnerable society.
Disasters are often described as a result of the combination of: the exposure to a hazard; the conditions of vulnerability that are present; and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with the potential negative consequences.
Hazards can include latent conditions that may represent future threats. When the threat becomes a reality, or when it materializes, the risk becomes a disaster. For example, a certain area might be located in a region where earthquakes might occur. There is a certain hazard. There is only risk if within the earthquake hazard area there is a vulnerable society. There is a risk that a future earthquake might cause considerable casualties and losses. When the hazard materializes, the earthquake actually takes place, causing the losses and casualties to the vulnerable society, and creating the disaster.

32. A disaster happens when a hazard impacts on the vulnerable population and causes damage, casualties and disruption
A hazard is disastrous only when it affects people, their properties and activities
For example; an earthquake in an uninhabited desert cannot be considered a disaster, no matter how strong the intensities produced
Disaster occurs only when hazards and vulnerability meet

33. When Hazard and risk materializes then Disaster occurs
Probability of hazard

34. Source: http://www. who

35. Terminology by UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR)
Risk: The combination of the probability of an event and its negative consequences. Acceptable risk: The level of potential losses that a society or community considers acceptable given existing social, economic, political, cultural, technical and environmental conditions. Disaster risk: The potential disaster losses, in lives, health status, livelihoods, assets and services, which could occur to a particular community or a society over some specified future time period. Capacity: The combination of all the strengths, attributes and resources available within a community, society or organization that can be used to achieve agreed goals.
This terminology is based on the 2009 version.

36. Vulnerability: The characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.
Exposure: People, property, systems, or other elements present in hazard zones that are thereby subject to potential losses.
Forecast: Definite statement or statistical estimate of the likely occurrence of a future event or conditions for a specific area.
Comment: In meteorology a forecast refers to a future condition, whereas a warning refers to a potentially dangerous future condition
Mitigation: The lessening or limitation of the adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters.

37. Preparedness: The knowledge and capacities developed by governments, professional response and recovery organizations, communities and individuals to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from, the impacts of likely, imminent or current hazard events or conditions.
Prevention: The outright avoidance of adverse impacts of hazards and related disasters.
Recovery: The restoration, and improvement where appropriate, of facilities, livelihoods and living conditions of disaster-affected communities, including efforts to reduce disaster risk factors.
Response: The provision of emergency services and public assistance during or immediately after a disaster in order to save lives, reduce health impacts, ensure public safety and meet the basic subsistence needs of the people affected.

38. For more terms look at: http://unisdr
For more terms look at: ish.pdf

39. Discussion/Comment/Question