Disaster Management

Unit II: Natural Disaster

By:
Miss. Helly Mehta
Assistant Professor
CED,CGPIT
 Course outline
Climatic disasters: Floods, Flood control and management, Flash
floods, Droughts, Cyclones.

Geological and geomorphic disasters: Earthquakes and Tsunami.

 Definition
• According to the International Federation of Red Cross &
Red Crescent Societies Natural Disasters are naturally
occurring physical phenomena caused either by rapid or
slow onset events that have immediate impacts on human
health and secondary impacts causing further death and
suffering.
These disasters can be,

• Geophysical (e.g. Earthquakes, Landslides, Tsunamis and Volcanic

Activity)
• Hydrological (e.g. Avalanches and Floods)
• Climatological (e.g. Extreme Temperatures, Drought and Wildfires)
• Meteorological (e.g. Cyclones and Storms/Wave Surges)
• Biological (e.g. Disease Epidemics and Insect/Animal Plagues)
The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk
Reduction characterizes Natural Disasters in
relation to their magnitude or intensity, speed of
onset, duration and area of extent.
e.g. earthquakes are of short duration and usually
affect a relatively small region whereas droughts
are slow to develop and fade away and often affect
large regions.
• The definition of natural disasters is any catastrophic
event that is caused by nature or the natural processes
of the earth.
• The severity of a disaster is measured in lives lost,
economic loss, and the ability of the population to
rebuild.
• Events that occur in unpopulated areas are not
considered disasters. So a flood on an uninhabited
island would not count as a disaster, but a flood in a
populated area is called a natural disaster.
 Climatic Disasters:
Flood
• India has got two very distinct monsoons, namely, southwest
monsoon and Northeast monsoon.
• The southwest monsoon covers a period of four months from
June to September and the northeast monsoon covers a period of
three months from October to December.
• During southwest monsoon season, India gets its 75% of annual
total rainfall and the remaining in rest of the seasons.
• During Northeast monsoon season only Tamilnadu, Kerala, Parts
of Andhra Pradesh gets good amount of rainfalls. The
characteristic of southwest monsoon is its systematic onset and
withdrawal pattern
• Floods are the most common and widespread of all natural
disasters. India is one of the highly flood prone countries in the
world.
• Around 40 million hectares of land in India is prone to floods as
per National Flood Commission report. Floods cause damage to
houses, industries, public utilities and property resulting in
huge economic losses, apart from loss of lives.
• Though it is not possible to control the flood disaster totally, by
adopting suitable structural and non-structural measures the
flood damages can be minimized.
• For planning any flood management measure latest, reliable,
accurate and timely information is required.
• In this context satellite remote sensing plays an important role.
 Flood Control and Management:
• Flood control refers to all methods used to reduce or prevent the
detrimental effects of flood waters .
• Some of the common techniques used for flood control are
installation of rock berms, rock rip-raps, sandbags, maintaining
normal slopes with vegetation or application of soil cements on
steeper slopes and construction or expansion of drainage
channels.
• Other methods include levees, dikes, dams, retention or
detention basins. After the Katrina Disaster that happened in 2005,
some areas prefer not to have levees as flood controls. Communities
preferred improvement of drainage structures with detention basins
near the sites.
 Causes of Flood:
• Floods are caused by many factors: heavy precipitation, severe
winds over water, unusual high tides, tsunamis, or failure of
dams, levels, retention ponds, or other structures that
contained the water.
• Periodic floods occur on many rivers, forming a surrounding
region known as the flood plain.
 Natural Causes of Flood
• Excessive rainfall
• Storm Surges
• Melting Snow
• Global Atmospheric processes
• Earthquakes
 Effects of Floods
Flooding has many impacts:
• It damages property and endangers the lives of humans and other species.
• Rapid water runoff causes soil erosion and concomitant sediment deposition
elsewhere (such as further downstream or down a coast).
• The spawning grounds for fish and other wildlife habitats can become polluted or
completely destroyed.
• Some prolonged high floods can delay traffic in areas which lack elevated roadways.
• Floods can interfere with drainage and economic use of lands, such as interfering
with farming.
• Structural damage can occur in bridge abutments, bank lines, sewer lines, and other
structures within floodways.
• Waterway navigation and hydroelectric power are often impaired.
• Financial losses due to floods are typically millions of rupees each year.
 Control of Floods
Some methods of flood control have been practiced since ancient
times:
• These methods include planting vegetation to retain extra
water, terracing hillsides to slow flow downhill, and the
construction of floodways (man-made channels to divert
floodwater).
• Other techniques include the construction of levees, dikes,
dams, reservoirs or retention ponds to hold extra water during
times of flooding.
 Flash Flood
• A flood that rises rapidly, with little or no advance warning, is
called a flash flood. A flash flood is a rapid flooding of low-lying
areas: washes, rivers, dry lakes and depressions.
• Flash floods usually result from intense rainfall over a relatively
small area, or if the area was already saturated from previous
precipitation.
• It may be caused by heavy rain associated with a severe
thunderstorm, hurricane, tropical storm, or meltwater
from ice or snow flowing over ice sheets or snowfields.
• Flash floods may also occur after the collapse of a
natural ice or debris dam, or a human structure such as
a man-made dam, as occurred before the Johnstown
Flood of 1889.
• Flash floods are distinguished from regular floods by
having a timescale of fewer than six hours between
rainfall and the onset of flooding.
Drought:
• A drought or drougth is a natural disaster of below-
average precipitation in a given region, resulting in
prolonged shortages in the water supply, whether
atmospheric, surface water or ground water.
• A drought can last for months or years, or may be
declared after as few as 15 days.
• It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and
agriculture of the affected region and harm to the local
economy
Causes of drought:
• Precipitation deficiency
• Dry season
• Erosion and human activities
• Climatic changes
Types of drought:
• Meteorological drought
• Agricultural drought
• Hydrological drought
• Socioeconomic drought
Impact of Drought
• Economic Impacts
• Environmental Impacts
• Social Impacts
Cyclones:
• Cyclones are huge revolving storms caused by winds
blowing around a central area of low atmospheric
pressure. In the northern hemisphere, cyclones are called
hurricanes or typhoons and their winds blow in an anti-
clockwise circle. In the southern hemisphere, these
tropical storms are known as cyclones, whose winds blow
in a clockwise circle.
• Tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-
pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce
strong winds and heavy rain.
• Tropical cyclones fall under the purview of warm core system of
storms. As far as India is concerned, cyclonic storm develops
over tropical oceans like the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and the
Arabian Sea.
• The revolving draft that develops during tropical cyclone could
be of size ranging from 200 to 2000 kilometres in diameter.
Abnormally high pressure gradient, strong wind and heated
center are some of the basic features of tropical cyclone.
 Formation of Cyclone:
• When sun warms the oceans surface to temperatures over 27°C, evaporation
and conduction transfer heat to the atmosphere.  The moist air moves up
and comes in contact with the cold air in the upper level of atmosphere and
gets condensed.  The water vapour from the ocean generated by such
evaporation is the fuel that drives a tropical storm, because as the vapour
condenses into clouds and precipitates, it pumps huge amounts of heat into
the cyclone. This instability boosts the likelihood of convection current which
leads to strong updrafts that lift the air and moisture upwards creating an
environment favorable for the development of high, towering clouds.
• A tropical disturbance is born when this moving mass of thunderstorm
maintains its identity for a period of 24 hours or more
 Classification of Cyclone
• Many types of tropical cyclones are observed all over the world. Based on
its location and severity tropical cyclone can be classified as typhoon,
tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression and hurricane.
Normally, tropical cyclones are classified as per their wind speed.
Indian classifications of these cyclonic disturbances are shown in Table below:

Table: Indian Classification of cyclonic disturbances in the North Indian Ocean (Bay
of Bengal and Arabian ocean
 Impact of Cyclone
• The impact of tropical cyclones can be very significant in terms of the
detrimental aspects.
• There are three main features of cyclone (high wind, rainfall and storm surge)
which can cause widespread damage.
• A major factor in the growing losses caused by meteorological hazards is the
concentration of population and economic activity in coastal plains and low-
lying areas that are subject to storm surges and land-borne flooding.
• High winds can damage structures like houses and other infrastructure
(bridges, dams, embankments etc.); uproot electricity supply and
telecommunication lines etc.  Extremely heavy rain can cause flooding.
Floods wash away human beings and animals and make water unfit for
drinking. There can be outbreak of diseases like cholera, jaundice or viral
fever due to intake of impure water. Water gets contaminated because of
floating carcasses and corpses and mixing of sewage. Movement of stored
food supplies also gets severely affected due to floods as rail tracks and
roads are breached. The floodwaters turn the fields salty.  Storm surge
inundates low-lying coastal areas resulting in life loss and destruction of
property. Besides it destroys vegetation and reduces soil fertility. It also
affects environment as coral reefs can often suffer damage.
Management and Mitigation of Cyclones
• 1) Coastal plantation: Forests act as buffer zone against cyclones.
Cyclones travel unchecked in absence of forest. The degraded
forests land must be planted as plantation will act as green
wall/wind break for cyclones and water flow reduction in storm
surges. Mangrove forests shall be managed. 2) Effective weather
Monitoring: Cyclones can be predicted several days’ before. So,
effective weather monitoring and forecast can help in minimizing
the losses due to cyclones. Warning messages should be simple
and reach in time to the masses.
• 3) Land Use control: Land use should be such that minimum
critical activities carried out in vulnerable areas. Buildings should
be water and wind resistant. Retrofitting of the older buildings
should be mandatory. There should be maintenance of river
embankments. Communication lines should be drawn
underground. Construction of strong halls in vulnerable areas. 4)
Coastal Regulation Zone norms: They should be strictly enforced.
5) Insurance cover: Comprehensive state insurance cover needs to
be provided for persons, their properties and cattle.
• 6) Preparedness: Coastal areas should have adequate
preparedness against cyclones. Wide roads for quick evacuation,
disaster resilient buildings, shelter houses etc. 7) Awareness:
Focused awareness activities are required to increase public
awareness of storm surge, flooding and rainfall related to cyclone
 Geological and Geomorphic disasters-
Earthquakes and Tsunami.
Earthquakes:
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of
the surface of the Earth, with sudden release of energy in the form of seismic
waves on the surface of the earth. The point inside the crust where the
pressure is released is called the focus. The point on the Earth's surface above
the focus is called the epicentre. When earthquake occurs beneath the sea it
causes tsunami. The study of earthquakes is called as seismology and the
instrument used to measure seismic waves is called as seismometer or
seismograph. The magnitude of earthquake is measured by richter scale and
intensity by mercalli scale.
Table: Effects on earthquake with various magnitudes