REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENTAL

HAZARDS AND RISKS

(KSMITH)
INTRODUCTION
❖ Is the world really becoming a more dangerous place? If so, what is
the cause? Why are even advanced nations still vulnerable to some
natural processes? What is a disaster?
❖ Why do disasters kill more people in poor countries?
❖ What are the best means of reducing the impact of hazards and
disasters in the future?
INTRODUCTION
❖ It is impossible to live in a totally risk-free environment. We all face
some degree of risk each day
▪ whether it is to life and limb in a road accident,
▪ to our possessions from theft or
▪ to our personal space from noise or other types of pollution.
❖ Some of these threats are ‘chronic’ or routine.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES
❖ Our understanding of hazards and disasters has changed markedly
through history.
❖ A concern for earthquake and famine began in the earliest times.
❖ In the past, great catastrophes were seen as ‘Acts of God’. This
perspective viewed damaging events as a divine punishment for moral
misbehaviour, rather than a consequence of human use of the earth.
❖ It generally encouraged an acceptance of disasters as external,
inevitable events although, in some cases – like that of frequently
flooded land – communities began to avoid such sites.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES
❖ Eventually, more organized attempts were made to limit the damaging
effects of natural hazards, an approach that led to the earliest of the
four hazard paradigms recognized in Table 1.1.
1) The Engineering Paradigm (Pre 1950):
This approach emerged 4,000 years back in the Middle East when
river dams were constructed and attempts were made to defend
buildings against earthquakes. Subsequently with the growth of earth
science and civil engineering led to structural effective designs to
control the damage effects of certain physical events. In the end of
19th century and the beginning of 20th century new measures like
weather forecasting and severe storm warnings emerged.4 As a whole
this approach is more science based where main reasoning was done
on the physical causes and response was science based as focussed on
weather forecasting and building of large structure based designs to
defend against natural hazards, especially hydro-metrological one.
2) The Behavioural Paradigm (1950-70):
In this approach the main issues were related to the behaviour of
human beings and where important questions were like why people live
in Hazard prone areas? Why do natural hazards create economic in
more developed countries and how can changes in human behaviour
minimise the risk? To these issues the response was based on improved
short-term warnings and better long-term land planning so that humans
can avoid the hazard prone sites.
3) The Development Paradigm (1970-90):
Under development paradigm, the main questions were regarding
people suffering more severely in less developed countries as
compared to more developed countries in natural disasters. It also
focussed on historical and current socio-economic causes of the situation.
For example: If an earthquake of same magnitude happens both in
Bangladesh and USA at the same time, then, why the fatalities are
more in Bangladesh as compare to USA. For this response was on
greater awareness of human vulnerability to disaster and an
understanding of how low economic development and political
dependency contributes to this. The development philosophy
emerged basically because of slow progress achieved in disaster
losses in poor countries. Under this paradigm human exploitation of
nature was replied as a major case of disaster rather than nature
itself.
4) The Complex Paradigm (1990 and onwards):
Complex paradigm is the most recent in the understanding of hazards.
Under this multiple factors come into picture where main issue is on
disaster impact reduction in a sustainable way in future especially for
the poorest people. Example: Economic crisis happened in USA and
people in India are suffering or glaciers are melting somewhere and
people on island are suffering. For that more emphasis is on the
complicated interaction between nature and society leading to the
improved management of hazards according to local needs.
Environmental hazard refers to all the potential threats
facing human society by events that originate in, and are
transmitted through, the environment.