TYPES OF HAZARDS

The list of hacanty is very long and hazards can be classified in a number of ways. Generally hazard
are classified depending upon their causes, mitigation strategies or their effects on societies. We shall
confine ourselves to classification of disasters depending upon their causes only.

Types of Hazards depending upon their

causes

Hazards could be caused by nature or man and are consequently called natural bazards and manmade
hazards. A third type of hazards are caused both by nature and man and are called anci-natural

1. Natural Hazards. These are caused by the forces of nature and man has no role to play in such hazards.
Following are the main types of natural

• Earthquakes

Volcanic eruption

• Cyclonic storms Tsunami

• Floods

• Landslides

Droughts

2. Man-made Hazards. These are caused by undesirable activities of man Such hazards include:

• Explosions

Leakage of toxic waste

Pollution of air, water and land

Dam failures

War and Civil Terrorism

Strife

3. Socio-natural Hazards. These are caused by the combined effect of natural forces and misdeeds of
man. For example, the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts may increase due to
indiscriminate felling of trees, particularly in the catchment areas of the rivers. Storm surge hazards
may be worsened by the destruction of mangroves. Although landslides are normally caused by natural
forces, yet they may be caused and their frequency and impact may be aggravated as a result of building
roads in mountainous areas, excavating tunnels and

by mining and quarrying.

DISASTER

Extreme form of hazard leads to disaster. Disaster (French des meaning "bad" and aster meaning 'star')
concerned hazards is a manmade or natural event which results in widespread loss of life and property.
Thus disaster is Thus vulnerabilit defined as "A serious disruption of the functioning of individual or a
com a society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability
of the Institute of Disaster affected societs to cope using its own resources. The Centre for Disaster
United Nations defines disaster as the occurrence defined as the extent of a sudden or major misfortune
which disrupts the service or geographi buic fabric and normal functioning of a society for munity) The
World Bank defines disaster as an extraordinary event of limited duration which causes serino
disruption of the economy of the country. It is vulnerability implies an event or a series of events which
give rise to casualties and/or damage or loss of property. infra- structure, essential services or means of
livelihood on a scale that is beyond the normal capacity of the prevailing or con affected communities
to cope with unaided.

Hazards and disasters are closely related and are sometimes wied as synonymous with each other.
Hazard is a threat, while disaster is an event. The 2. Man-made Hazards. These are caused by
undesirable activities of man Such hazards include:

• Explosions

Leakage of toxic waste

Pollution of air, water and land

Dam failures

War and Civil Terrorism

Strife

3. Socio-natural Hazards. These are caused by the combined effect of natural forces and misdeeds of
man. For example, the frequency and intensity of floods and droughts may increase due to
indiscriminate felling of trees, particularly in the catchment areas of the rivers. Storm surge hazards
may be worsened by the destruction of mangroves. Although landslides are normally caused by natural
forces, yet they may be caused and their frequency and impact may be aggravated as a result of building
roads in mountainous areas, excavating tunnels and

by mining and quarrying.

DISASTER

Extreme form of hazard leads to disaster. Disaster (French des meaning "bad" and aster meaning 'star')
concerned hazards is a manmade or natural event which results in widespread loss of life and property.
Thus disaster is Thus vulnerabilit defined as "A serious disruption of the functioning of individual or a
com a society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses which exceed the ability
of the Institute of Disaster affected societs to cope using its own resources. The Centre for Disaster
United Nations defines disaster as the occurrence defined as the extent of a sudden or major misfortune
which disrupts the service or geographi buic fabric and normal functioning of a society for munity) The
World Bank defines disaster as an extraordinary event of limited duration which causes serino
disruption of the economy of the country. It is vulnerability implies an event or a series of events which
give rise to casualties and/or damage or loss of property. infra- structure, essential services or means of
livelihood on a scale that is beyond the normal capacity of the prevailing or con affected communities
to cope with unaided.

Hazards and disasters are closely related and are sometimes wied as synonymous with each other.
Hazard is a threat, while disaster is an event. The latter is a calamity or tragedy or a consequence of
hazard. Natural hazards that cause great loss to human life and economy are known as disasters and
catastrophes. The term disaster is sometimes also used to describe a "catastrophic situation in which she
normal patterns of life (or eco-systems) have been disrupted and extraordinary emergency interventions
are required to save and preserve human lives ander the environment."
Classification of Disasters

Disasters are generally classified on the basis of their origin as tectonic (earthquakes, volcanoes),
topographical (landslides, avalanches), meteorological (hurricanes, cyclones, tornadoes, floods,
droughts). infestic (locust invasion of crops, epidemics) and human (industrial accidents, nuclear
bombs).
VULNERABILITY

Hazards and disasters are unevenly distributed with respect to time and space. The terms like
'earthquake prone'. 'drought prone' or 'flood prone areas are used to describe the distributional effect of
the concerned hazards. People living in such areas are vulnerable to hazards and disasters of varied
types. Thus vulnerability is the extent to which an individual or a community or an area is exposed to
the impact of a hazard. According to National Institute of Disaster Management (formerly National
Centre for Disaster Management), vulnerability is defined as the extent to which a community,
structure. service or geographic area is likely to be damaged or disrupted by the impact of a particular
hazard on account of either nature, construction and proximity to hazardous terrain or disaster prone
area. Thus vulnerability implies a measure of risk combined with the level of social and economic
ability to cope with the resulting event in order to resist major disruption or loss.
In other words, vulnerability is a set of anal capacity of the prevailing or consequential conditions
composed of physical, socio-economic and/or political factors which increase a community's
susceptibility calamity or which adversely affect its ability to respond to events,"

Vulnerabilities
Vulnerabilities is a set of prevailing or consequential conditions resulting from physical, social,
economic and environmental factors, which increase the sustainability of a community to the impact of
hazards (ISDR 2002: 24). It can comprise of physical, socio-economic, environmental and/or political
factors that adversely affect the ability of communities to respond to events (Jegillos, 1999). Blaike et
al (1994) is of the opinion that vulnerability is the characteristics of person or group in terms of their
capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a hazard.

Vulnerability can be expressed as the degree of loss resulting from potentially damaging phenomenon
or hazard (Niekerk, 2002). In other words, vulnerabilities can be measured by the level of fatality i.e.
amount of deaths, losses of properties or cash etc. Population increases due to high birth rate and the
lack of good governance do make communities in developing nations to be highly vulnerable to hazards.
The community and its members may or may not be willing participants in contributing to or tolerating
the conditions leading to vulnerability. Taken together, they create a dynamic mix of variables, each of
which results from a continuous process. Vulnerabilities can be physical, social or attitudinal and can
be primary or secondary in nature. If there are positive factors, that increase ability to respond to needs
effectively or which reduce susceptibility, they are considered capabilities or coping mechanics.

Aspects contributing to vulnerability:

Political factors

Economic factors

Physical factors

Social factors

Ecological factors

Risk
Risk is usually associated with the inability of people to manage hazard events that may eventually lead
to negative consequences like destruction of the environment, socio-economic activities, properties and
losses of lives.

Risk in terms of disaster management has a specific focus (UN, 1992). It can be defined as the
probability of harmful consequences (ISDR, 2002), or expected losses (lives lost, persons injured,
damage to property and/or the environment, livelihoods lost, disruption of economic activity or social
systems) due to the interaction between humans, hazards and vulnerable conditions. Risk is therefore
the possibility that a particular hazard might exploit a particular vulnerability (Nierkerk, 2002).

It is the production of the possible damage caused by a hazard due to the vulnerability within a
community. In other words, risk is usually due to hazard events exploiting the vulnerable situation of
an environment or community. The poorer communities are more at risk because of their high
vulnerability to hazard situations due to their low coping capacities. The perception of risk and causes
vary from community to communities and culture to cultures.

Two elements are essential in the formulation or risk: the probability of occurrence of a given threat
(e.g. a hazard); and the degree of susceptibility of the element (e.g. a rural community) exposed to that
source (vulnerability (ISDR, 2002: 41).