D. Hazards and disasters - risk assessment and response - Adjustments and responses to hazards and disasters

Adjustments and responses to hazards and disasters

Responses to the risk of hazard events

Assessing risk

A risk assessment is a pre-event undertaking. It estimates the probability of a hazard event causing damage and therefore identifies what alterations can be made before the event in order to minimise impacts. Most risk assessments are based on two factors:

• The severity of an impact
• The likelihood of an impact

If both the severity and likelihood are high, the risk assessment has identified the main risks from a hazard event. This is useful because it allows governments, NGOs (like charities), communities and individuals to prioritize their actions.

Source: http://geographylaunchpad.weebly.com/responses-to-the-risk-of-hazard-events.html

There are many methods available to dealing with hazards but they tend to fall into 3 categories:

• Preparation - governments might consider how they can educate and prepare their populations for a disaster, so that they know what to do in a hazardous event. Also, governments can put into place laws and building codes to govern what can be built and to what standard, so that hazard impacts from hurricanes, earthquakes etc can be reduced.
• Prediction - this is basically the mechanism by which we try to forecast when and where a hazard will occur. There are a huge range of prediction methods now for a huge range of hazards, think about the Avalanche risk charts you may have seen whilst skiing.  We can use satellites, river flow meters, sulphur dioxide meters, tilt meters etc to predict different hazards. We are better at predicting some hazards such as flooding, than we are others, such as earthquakes, because some of the warning signs are clearer and because of the amount of response time to each hazard.
• Prevention - these are the methods that we can put into place as human beings to either prevent the hazard entirely or prevent some of the negative impacts of a hazard.  Some hazards such as forest fires can be prevented, by using fire breaks and prescribed (deliberate fires) major forest fires can be stopped.  Other hazards cannot be prevented, such as Hurricanes.  However, we can prevent some of the flooding during hurricanes by having correct drainage systems and coastal defences.

NOTE: The difference between preparation and prevention is not clear cut - you should possibly view it as prevention being anything that actively prevents or mitigates a characteristic of a particular hazard causing loss of life or damage to property . For example, building and earthquake resistance structure reduces earthquake shock-wave damage and therefore is Prevention. However, government laws ensuring that all buildings needs to have anti-seismic technology is Preparation.

Source: http://www.thegeographeronline.net/hazards-and-disasters---risk-assessment-and-response.html

Risk Assessment

Even if you know that you live in a hazardous you need to do an assessment to find out what the likelihood of hazard event happening is, how strong it is likely to be and what its likely impacts are. If you are only at risk from a small flood event, there is no point spending millions of dollars to build 5 metre high levees. Once you know the likely frequency and magnitude of the hazard you can then plan to how you are going to adjust.

Cost-benefits analysis

Before you starting making adjustments to a hazard it is probably worth carrying out some kind of cost benefit analysis. Cost benefit analysis might be done by an individual or a government.

Individual: An individual should look at the benefit of their house and where they live e.g. how much is their house worth, how much is their land worth and is their income dependent upon their location. They should then look at the costs of defending their property and land. If the benefit of their location is greater than the cost of defending then they should probably stay. When doing this calculation, people should take into account the cost of moving to a new location.

Government: When governments are deciding whether to protect a settlement, industrial zone or area of land, they will also look at the potential costs and benefits. For a town they will look at the value of the land and property as well as the number of jobs, its contribution to the national economy and taxes paid. They will then look at the costs of protecting the town. Again if the benefits are greater than the costs then they should defend.

Source: http://greenfieldgeography.wikispaces.com/Responses+to+the+risk+of+hazard+events

Before the event

Strategies before the event are largely similar to the mitigation strategies already studied. They include:

• Prediction
• Warning
• Practice and drills
• Alter the infrastructure to prevent damage
• Spread the risk through insurance
• Conduct risk assessments for specific areas

Source: http://geographylaunchpad.weebly.com/responses-to-the-risk-of-hazard-events.html

Once a decision to adjust has been made, then residents, communities and countries have to decide how to adjust. The choices include:

• Stop hazard - maybe possible for human hazards (better safety and regulations), but much harder for natural hazards, except maybe drought
• Modify the impacts of the hazard e.g. defenses or site selection (away from fault lines, on stable bedrock, on gentle gradient - flood barriers, levees, lava diversion channels)
• Reduce potential losses e.g. prepare and warn populations (evacuation drills, train search teams, evacuation route, warning alarms)
• Spread the cost of potential losses e.g. emergency aid, public funds, National Guard, government compensation
• Plan for losses e.g. insurance or relief funds
• Endure losses i.e. accept and rebuild

Source: http://greenfieldgeography.wikispaces.com/Responses+to+the+risk+of+hazard+events

Reducing vulnerability: modifying the loss

Once a risk assessment has been conducted, individuals and communities may take steps to reduce the impact of the event. These methods are known as 'modification':

• Modify vulnerability - change the way in which people live, so that they are less vulnerable (susceptible) to the impacts of the hazard event. This is a long term and difficult thing to achieve.
• Modify the event - this is a technological fix, to prevent or reduce the hazard event itself. In practice, this means changing the impacts of the event through better buildings or suppressing the event (e.g. building flood barriers to protect a specific part of a town). Though possible, it is impossible to be certain of preventing the impact of a massive hazard event.
• Modify the loss - once the potential for damage is accepted (on whatever scale), individuals and communities will modify the loss - that is, they will try to minimise their losses by sharing them out in some way. This is known as 'spreading the risk'. There are two main ways of spreading the risk - aid, and insurance.
• Modifying the loss by spreading the risk: aid and insurance

Aid

Most communities who suffer a disaster do not pay the full price of dealing with the impacts. Instead, they rely on donations from others. (By definition, a disaster means that the community needs support from outside; however, they might end up paying for it!) In most cases, the government of a country will have a method of releasing funds, such as in the USA where an event can be declared a Federal Disaster which opens up sources of funding. In this case, people receive help at no cost to themselves.

The 'man with the boat' parable... One view of the reliance on the help of others!

There are two problems with relying on aid:

From the perspective of the recipient - the help may be insufficient, slow, focused on a small area, or last only in the short term, or not arrive at all. The recipient is at the mercy of the donor. Though charities such as the Red Cross and Oxfam provide disaster relief, they are usually not very well funded and unable to help all those who need it. 

From the perspective of the donor - the question of individual responsibility is raised, with the potential for people to be blamed for living in a hazard area or relying on help from others for an event they know is likely. This can lead to donor fatigue, where the public and agencies stop funding support due to a sense that the money isn't solving the root of the problem. 

Source: http://geographylaunchpad.weebly.com/responses-to-the-risk-of-hazard-events.html

Aid can be used as an adjustment before potential hazards strike or after hazards strike. Aid before hazards strike will take the form of development aid and may include:

• The building of wells to reduce drought and disease
• The improvement of irrigation and the introduction of GM crops to reduce famine
• The building of dams to reduce the risk of flooding and droughts
• The building of roads and mobile networks to improve transport and communication throughout a country
• The building of schools to improve education about hazards
• The building of hospitals to reduce hazards like disease and treat people injured in hazards
• 
  
• Aid given after a hazard or during a hazard is more emergency aid. Emergency aid may include:
• The sending of rescue teams to search for victims
• The provision of medicine or doctors to help injured
• The provision of food and clean water
• The provision of tents and blankets, etc.

Aid may also be given at a later date to help rebuild after a disaster e.g. rebuilding homes, roads, schools, hospitals and electricity supply.

Source: http://www.thegeographeronline.net/hazards-and-disasters---risk-assessment-and-response.html

Insurance

This is most common as a strategy in HICs, and is much less common in LICs and MICs where people have less spare money. Insurance is where an individual (or business, or community) pays an insurance company a certain amount of money, known as a premium. If the hazard event occurs and the individual loses out, the individual will ask the company to reimburse them - this is known as a claim. The company then pays the costs, which is known as 'settling the claim'. In effect, the insurance company is gambling that in the long term, they receive more from the premiums every year than they have to pay out. They do this in two ways. First, they collect premiums from millions of individuals. In any given year, only a small percentage will actually make a claim and so there is plenty of money left to settle the claims and make a profit. Second, they collect premiums from individuals on a long term basis. If an individual makes many claims, the insurance company will assess them as being a high risk, and their premiums will go up - or, the company might refuse to insure the individual.

Source: http://geographylaunchpad.weebly.com/responses-to-the-risk-of-hazard-events.html

Advantages

• People can rebuild if homes and/or property are damaged by hazards
• People can receive money for lost income if their job or business is impacted by a hazard

Disadvantages

• Not everyone can afford insurance
• Insurance is offered in all areas in all countries
• Insurance may be denied if the risk is too great
• People maybe less willing to spend money on protection, if they know insurance will pay for repairs.

Source: http://www.thegeographeronline.net/hazards-and-disasters---risk-assessment-and-response.html

Hazard Mapping (Land use planning or zoning)

Hazard maps are created by calculating the vulnerability of different areas to natural hazards. Hazard maps are often made to calculate populations vulnerability to hazards like earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes and floods. Once potential hazards are known then appropriate adjustments can be taken. Adjustments may include:

• Creating zones where building is not permitted because it is too dangerous
• Creating zones where only low value uses are permitted e.g. farming
• Protecting areas that are vulnerable to hazards with the use of defences
• Evacuating vulnerable areas (and possibly allowing managed retreat in coastal areas)
• Rebuilding vulnerable areas to new building standards

When creating a hazard map a number of variables will be considered. For example scientists creating an earthquake hazard map will look at the following:

• Proximity to plate boundary or known fault
• Seismic history (frequency and magnitude)
• Geology (bedrock is much more stable than alluvial deposits which are vulnerable to liquefaction)
• Gradient (flatter ground is generally more stable than steep land)
• Possible secondary hazards (proximity to coast for things like tsunami, but also hills for landslides (forested/deforested))

Although hazard maps allow people and governments to prepare for hazards and enforcing zoning and planning regulations, it might also create difficulties for other people. For example in the UK the Environment Agency has just produced a flood risk map. This has helped communities prepare defences, but it has also meant that some people have seen the value of their property reduce and prevented them from getting insurance.

Source: http://www.thegeographeronline.net/hazards-and-disasters---risk-assessment-and-response.html

Seismic hazard map - USGS

Responses after the event

Short-term response: A response in the days and weeks immediately after a disaster has happened. Short-term responses mainly involve search and rescue and helping the injured.

Mid-term response: Responses in the weeks and months following a disaster. Mid-term responses involve re-opening transport links and getting electricity and water supplies operational again. It might also involve establishing longer-term refugee camps where there has been large-scale destruction.

Long-term response: Responses that go on for months and years after a disaster. It involves rebuilding destroyed houses, schools, hospitals, etc. It also involves kick-starting the local economy.

Short-term

• Countries search and rescue teams
• Countries providing helicopters and boats in search effort
• Countries and NGOs donating food, tents and water (water purification)
• Countries and NGOs sending medical teams
• Providing aid money
• Burying the dead to stop spread of diseases (recovery of bodies)

Mid-Term

• Re-connection of water and electricity supplies
• Ongoing medical rehabilitation and possible counselling
• Rebuilding of homes or creation of more permanent temporary structures
• Re-connection of communication links (internet, phone masts)
• Rebuilding of transport links (roads, railways, airports, ports)
• Clearing away damaged buildings
• Re-open schools and hospitals
• Cancelling of debt (also long-term

Long-term

• Countries providing long-term aid (donations) to a region or country
• Countries creating enterprise zones to encourage investment
• Improvement in warning systems (tsunami warning system)
• Countries investing in effected areas (FDI)
• Improved education of hazard risks
• Create new shelters and evacuation routes. Build new defences.
• Help return of refugees and homing of orphanages
• These can also be referred to as the 3R's:
• Rescue (Short-term)
• Rehabilitation (Mid-term)
• Reconstruction (Long-term)

Source: http://www.thegeographeronline.net/hazards-and-disasters---risk-assessment-and-response.html