Disaster Risk Management Quiz

Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction

• Disaster is a sudden, calamitous occurrence causing great harm, injury, destruction, and devastation to life and property.
• Disasters affect two elements: life (human or animal) and property.
• Disaster effects range from minor damage (broken windows, doors) to major damage (torn rooftops, collapsed walls) and total destruction (destroyed houses and structures), and death.
• A disaster is a serious disruption of a community or society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses exceeding the affected community's ability to cope with its own resources.
• Disasters result from exposure to hazard, conditions of vulnerability, and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with potential negative consequences.
• Disaster impacts include loss of life, injury, disease, damage to properties, destruction of assets, loss of services, social and economic disruptions, and environmental degradation.
• Disasters are classified into natural and man-made.
• Natural disasters are caused by natural forces and can be rapid onset or progressive. Examples: earthquakes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, extreme temperatures (drought).
• Man-made disasters are caused by intentional or non-intentional human actions. Examples: technological/industrial disasters (unregulated industrialization, inadequate safety standards), terrorism/violence (bombs, explosions), complex humanitarian emergencies (conflicts or wars, genocide).

Risk Factors Underlying Disaster

• Exposure: Presence of people, property, or resources in areas potentially adversely affected by a disaster. Examples: coastal villages exposed to storm surges and tsunamis, croplands near rivers exposed to floods. Severity from high (first-hand victims) to moderate (rescue workers) to low (indirect observers).

• Vulnerability: Degree to which a system, community or individual is susceptible to and unable to cope with adverse effects of a disaster considering social, economic, physical, and environmental conditions. Examples: low-income family with a poorly built wooden house, limited disaster awareness and emergency services.

• Hazard: Potentially damaging physical events or human activities. Examples: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, typhoons.

How to Reduce Effects of Disaster

• Hazard Identification: Identifying the specific hazards your family might face.
• Resilience: Building resilience by improving preparedness and developing response plans.
• Equipping: Equipping communities with resources and knowledge to mitigate risks.
• Steps to reduce disaster effects: Check hazards at home, identify safe places, educate family, have disaster kits, develop emergency communication plan, help community get ready, and practice the disaster preparedness cycle.

Additional Considerations

• Gender and family
• Age
• Economic status
• Climate Change
• Environmental Degradation
• Globalized Economic Development
• Poverty and Inequality
• Poor Urban Development
• Weak Governance

Disaster Risk

• Disaster risk is the potential (not actual) disaster losses in lives, livelihoods, assets, and services. This is a product of possible damage caused by hazards due to vulnerabilities within the community. It is situation-specific and hazard-specific.
• Factors that increase vulnerability include high population density, limited capacity for disaster risk reduction.

Disaster Mitigation

• Disaster mitigation measures aim to eliminate or reduce the impacts and risks of hazards before emergencies.

Elements at Risk

• Physical elements: urban land use, building types, building costs, essential facilities (shelters, schools, hospitals).
• Socio-economic: population density, economic activities.
• Environmental elements: ecosystems, protected areas, natural parks, wetlands.

Project 1: Information Brochure

• Project tasks include observing a community, determining exposed elements, and differentiating vulnerabilities to specific hazards.
• The project involves creating a tri-fold information brochure on disaster risks and relevant risk reduction measures.

Hazard, Type, Impact, Identification and Risk Assessment

• Types of hazards: natural (earthquakes, tsunamis), quasi-natural (pollution, smog), technological (chemical spills).
• Hazard identification is the process of determining physical and nonphysical agents in a workplace.
• Risk assessment involves prioritizing hazards considering probability and severity. Key steps are identifying hazards, assessing risks, making changes, and checking changes.
• Steps in risk assessment: Identify hazards, assess risks, make changes, and check changes. Risk assessment tables may be helpful.

Different Impacts of Hazards

• Physical impact: including injuries, destruction of infrastructure, wide spread destruction of housing.
• Psychological impact: including grief, psychological illnesses, marital conflicts, depression.
• Socio-cultural impact: including displacement, loss of cultural identity, forced adoption of new cultures, ethnic conflicts.
• Economic impact: including loss of jobs, loss of harvest, loss of farms, loss of money.
• Environmental impact: including loss of forests, loss of water, disturbance of biodiversity, loss of natural rivers
• Biological impact: including epidemics to people and flora/fauna, proliferation of viral diseases.

What's New: 1 Pic, 1 Word

• These are word puzzles where you have to arrange jumbled letters based on the image.