Global InformationNatural disaster information
A natural disaster is the highly harmful impact on a society or community following a natural hazard event. Some examples of natural hazard events include: flooding, drought, earthquake, tropical cyclone, lightning, tsunami, volcanic activity, wildfire.[1] A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property, and typically leaves economic damage in its wake. The severity of the damage depends on the affected population's resilience and on the infrastructure available.[2] Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned. Instead, the simpler term disaster could be used, while also specifying the category (or type) of hazard.[3][4][5] A disaster is a result of a natural or human-made hazard impacting a vulnerable community. It is the combination of the hazard along with exposure of a vulnerable society that results in a disaster.
In modern times, the divide between natural, human-made and human-accelerated disasters is quite difficult to draw.[6][7][8] Human choices and activities like architecture,[9] fire,[10][11] resource management[11][12] and climate change[13] potentially play a role in causing natural disasters. In fact, the term natural disaster was called a misnomer already in 1976.[5]
Natural disasters can be aggravated by inadequate building norms, marginalization of people, inequities, overexploitation of resources, extreme urban sprawl and climate change.[6] The rapid growth of the world's population and its increased concentration often in hazardous environments has escalated both the frequency and severity of disasters. Extreme climates (such as those in the Tropics) and unstable landforms, coupled with deforestation, unplanned growth proliferation and non-engineered constructions create more vulnerable interfaces of populated areas with disaster-prone natural spaces. Developing countries which suffer from chronic natural disasters, often have ineffective communication systems combined with insufficient support for disaster prevention and management.[14]
An adverse event will not rise to the level of a disaster if it occurs in an area without a vulnerable population.[15][16] Once a vulnerable population has experienced a disaster, the community can take many years to repair and that repair period can lead to further vulnerability. The disastrous consequences of natural disaster also affect the mental health of affected communities, often leading to post-traumatic symptoms. These increased emotional experiences can be supported through collective processing, leading to resilience and increased community engagement.[17]
- ^ "Natural Hazards | National Risk Index". hazards.fema.gov. Retrieved 2022-06-08.
- ^ G. Bankoff, G. Frerks, D. Hilhorst (eds.) (2003). Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People. Routledge. ISBN 1-85383-964-7.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)[page needed] - ^ Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cannon, Terry. (1994). Vulnerability Analysis and The Explanation Of 'Natural' Disasters. Disasters, Development and Environment.
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
:2was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b "Why natural disasters aren't all that natural". openDemocracy. 2020-11-26. Archived from the original on 2020-11-29. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ Gould, Kevin A.; Garcia, M. Magdalena; Remes, Jacob A.C. (1 December 2016). "Beyond 'natural-disasters-are-not-natural': the work of state and nature after the 2010 earthquake in Chile". Journal of Political Ecology. 23 (1): 93. doi:10.2458/v23i1.20181.
- ^ Smith, Neil (2006-06-11). "There's No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster". Items. Archived from the original on 2021-01-22. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ Coburn, Andrew W.; Spence, Robin JS; Pomonis, Antonios (1992). "Factors determining human casualty levels in earthquakes: mortality prediction in building collapse" (PDF). Proceedings of the tenth world conference on earthquake engineering. Vol. 10. pp. 5989–5994. ISBN 978-90-5410-060-7. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-11-12. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ "Wildfire Causes and Evaluations (U.S. National Park Service)". NPS.gov Homepage (U.S. National Park Service). 2018-11-27. Archived from the original on 2021-01-01. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ a b DeWeerdt, Sarah (2020-09-15). "Humans cause 96% of wildfires that threaten homes in the U.S." Anthropocene. Archived from the original on 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
- ^ Smil, Vaclav (18 December 1999). "China's great famine: 40 years later". BMJ. 319 (7225): 1619–1621. doi:10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1619. PMC 1127087. PMID 10600969.
- ^ McGuire, Bill (2012). Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-959226-5. Archived from the original on 2022-04-18. Retrieved 2020-12-29.[page needed]
- ^ Zorn, Matija (2018), Pelc, Stanko; Koderman, Miha (eds.), "Natural Disasters and Less Developed Countries", Nature, Tourism and Ethnicity as Drivers of (De)Marginalization: Insights to Marginality from Perspective of Sustainability and Development, Perspectives on Geographical Marginality, vol. 3, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 59–78, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-59002-8_4, ISBN 978-3-319-59002-8, retrieved 2022-06-08
- ^ D. Alexander (2002). Principles of Emergency planning and Management. Harpended: Terra publishing. ISBN 1-903544-10-6.
- ^ B. Wisner; P. Blaikie; T. Cannon & I. Davis (2004). At Risk – Natural hazards, people's vulnerability and disasters. Wiltshire: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25216-4.[page needed]
- ^ Kieft, J.; Bendell, J (2021). "The responsibility of communicating difficult truths about climate influenced societal disruption and collapse: an introduction to psychological research". Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) Occasional Papers. 7: 1–39. Archived from the original on 2021-03-10. Retrieved 2021-04-03.