Natural Hazards Midterm Review

The impacts of disaster are not equal at the global scale. Some 90 percent of hazard-related deaths occur in the less
economically developed countries, while more than 75 per cent of the economic loses occur in the more
economically developed countries.
In LEDC, the number of deaths due to natural hazards is increasing, while it is decreasing in the MEDCs.
Hazard Impacts:
Direct Losses:

Deaths
Physical injury

Indirect losses:

Mental health problems

Loss of employment
Loss of ability to earn money
Disease
Disruption of social and economic activity

Natural processes are driven by energy, and this energy is derived from three sources:
1. Earths internal heat
2. The Sun
3. Gravitational attraction of the Earth (e.g. landslides)
Hazard: The probability that a specific damaging event will happen within a particular period of time
Vulnerability: the susceptibility of people and property to a hazardous event
Risk: a function of hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and coping capacity. Class: the exposure of people to a
hazardous event: the potential threat of the physical conditions (i.e. climate, terrain, geology).
Natural Hazards are naturally occurring events which has the potential to cause loss of life or loss
of property.
What we can tolerate is a band of tolerance. Anything outside of that is considered a hazard.

Natural Hazards are not always entirely natural. We can use land in places where natural processes occur:

building on floodplains
building on steep slopes prone to landslides

There are three categories of hazards:

1. Hazards below the surface (tectonic)
2. Hazards on the surface (geomorphological)
3. Hazards above the surface (atmospheric)
How are people affected? Vulnerability based on:

Wealth
Age (old and very young more vulnerable)
Education
Experience

Why would people choose to live where there is risk of natural hazards?

Benefits outweigh costs

Unpredictability/lack of frequency
Resources
Accessibility
Lack of ability to leave
No risk when people first moved (or were unaware of risk)
Acceptance of risk

Key Question: What are the physical processes that cause natural hazards and what problems do these processes
cause for people?
Tectonic Hazards

Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Tsunami
Plate Tectonic Theory
The lithosphere consists of the oceanic crust and continental crust. In general, oceanic crust is denser
than continental crust.
The Earth has 8 major tectonic plates and 25 minor tectonic plates. They are moving in different directions at
around 2 15cm/year

Crust Types and Movement

There are two types of earth crust:
1. oceanic crust
a. denser, lower down, thin, usually below sea level
2. continental crust
a. silicon, aluminum, less dense
If oceanic and continental crust meet, the oceanic crust usually falls below the continental crust. Sometimes plates
move apart, sometimes they move together

There also exists another type of convergent destructive plate boundary where neither crust subducts under the
other.

Earthquakes
Plate movement is not smooth. When this happenswhen crust is prevented from movingpressure builds up and
stress is eventually released at depth. Seismic shockwaves spread out from the point of release: the focus.
The point directly above the focus is the epicentre, where the energy is the strongest. The epicentre, however, may
not be on the fault line.
The stronger and shallower the quake, the more violent the destruction. Deeper = felt by wider
radius.
The scale of the earthquake is determined by:

Depth of focus
Length of time stresses have built up
Type of plate boundary
o determines the type of earthquake

Reasons why earthquakes with the same magnitude could cause wildly different damages:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

geology
preparedness
quality of infrastructure
secondary effects (landslides, etc.)
gradient/slope of the land
population density

Tsunamis
Sumata Tsunami: caused by a magnitude 9.1 earthquake at a subduction zone. This plate boundary had been locked
for 100s of years. The subduction zone broke all along the plate.
Only really tall buildings remained above the waves. The waves retreated, but another bigger one came.
Effects of tsunamis:
1. Hydrostatic water carries things
2. Hydrodynamic water breaks things
3. Shock effects water carries things & uses them as weapons

Volcanoes
There are two (main) types of lava: basaltic and andesitic.
Basaltic Lava

Low silica content (silica determines lava behaviour)

Not very viscous. Takes longer to cooldown so it is runny and travels very far.
Very gassy. Produces extensive but gently sloping landforms.
Common eruptions
Find them at constructive plate boundaries

Andesitic Lava

Thick, moves more slowly

Cools down quickly
Makes cone volcanoes

More violent, less frequent eruptions

Found at destructive plate boundaries

Primary Hazards of Volcanoes

1. Lava flow (obviously)
a. doesnt usually kill people!
b. damages a lot of property
2. Pyroclastic flows
a. dust, ash, steam released from a mountain at a destructive plate boundary. Heavy dust. Moves
downhill very fast.
3. Ash and tephra fall
a. when ash settles on a roof, it can collapse.
4. Volcanic gases
a. rarely a problem but in Cameroon, poisonous volcanic gases killed people
Secondary hazards:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

lahars
jkulhlaup
landslides
tsunamis
blockage of solar radiation
famine
disease