Natural Hazards, Unnatural Disasters. Management Essay

Natural Hazards, Unnatural Disasters
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Natural Hazards, Unnatural Disasters
Introduction
The book examines the meaning of disaster, including exchanging ideas on the domains surrounding disaster as a phenomenon of study. The book emphasizes the concept of exchange, whereby the process of defining and discussing definitions helps address different crucial issues in research and application. The book helps one to understand the concept of disasters from the perspective of researchers and practitioners. There is elaborate differentiation of the use of disaster definitions that provides appropriate ground for government action versus identification as a field of study. The book refines and encourages the process of refining the concept of disaster as well as enabling the audience to reflect on the definition of principles that surrounds disaster and think about the consequences of the definitions through various aspects such as academic and actual application. There is clear identification of various disciplinary niches of disaster within the interdisciplinary field of study. Further, the core discussions resonate with current threats to governments, such as a surge in terrorism. This calls for an elaborate investment of resources within the community of disaster researchers. The principles as elaborated in this book are crucial, especially when it comes to the need that regards the implementation of a warning system, mitigation measures, response tactics, and recovery mechanisms. The book’s provisions are relevant to elaborate emergency management domains and an integrated emergency management system as detailed by the government. The comparability and the types of disasters as outlined in the book provides a system of preparedness, mitigation as well as response and recovery (Perry & Quarantelli, 2005).
Hazard clustering
Hazard in this study refers to the natural process that poses negative impacts on society, ecology as well as the economy. These processes entail natural factors alongside human factors that relate to the natural domain. Hazards, as explained, provides a potential source for disasters, therefore, very detrimental towards human development since it hinders the process of development. There is the necessity of recognizing as well as mitigating various forms of hazards within an environment. The concept of hazard recognition focuses on the identification and assessment of hazards that rely heavily on visual perception. Additionally, it also provides the line towards the decision-making abilities of the workers. The occurrence of unidentified mine sites hazard poses a risk to workers within the site. The aspect of understanding various factors influencing visual search alongside decision making on performance is key (Perry & Quarantelli, 2005).
Hazards are perceived to be riskier since, in the context of hazard recognition, risks provide various salience relating to the task objective that focuses on the safety of the people. The nature of risk significantly relates to the nature of accuracy on the individual hazards level alongside the aggregate. There are different perspectives that are applicable to the broad classification of disasters. They can be classed from a geographical perspective, anthropology, sociology, health science, engineering, geophysical as well as from developmental studies perspectives.
Hazards are categorized based on the environment of occurrence, commonly referred to as the disaster-formative environment. The various classification that is done based on causes focuses on the origin of hazards. This entails causes from natural and human factors or the various interactions between the two. However, there emerge some difficulties in synthesizing various impacts and hazard intensity since they are measured by the use of different indicators. Disaster influences various aspects of life such as human and property losses, the level of resource and environmental destruction, various ecological damages, interference with the social order alongside various threats on the normal operation of life alongside production lines (Perry & Quarantelli, 2005). The various classification of disasters relates to hazards, including the affected bodies. The nature of exposure has greatly increased with the expansion of distribution bodies. However, the human ability on the disaster preventive mechanisms have also experienced diverse improvements. The implication is that the same hazard has the potential of inflicting varying degrees of disaster.
Impacts of Disasters
There are economic impacts associated with natural disasters. The disasters usually cause adverse long-term consequences for economic growth, development as well as poverty reduction. Moreover, disasters appear to present adverse long-term economic consequences that negatively influences development. There is a quick shift in the level of vulnerability across regions currently experiencing transformation on the economic front. This is due to the rapid growth, urbanization alongside related technical and social changes. The big chunk of concentration within high-risk countries that are considered vulnerable to climatic hazards are especially related to Sub-Sharan Africa. However, the various risks that originate from geophysical hazards require better recognition within highl...