Risk Assessment: Vulnerability and Hazard Analysis

Disaster Management: Key Definitions

• A disaster is a sudden event causing significant loss of life and property, also known as a calamity.
• Disasters disrupt normal societal functions, leading to extensive damage to life, property, and the environment beyond the society's coping capacity.

Types of Disasters

• Natural disasters stem from natural processes causing harm, such as agricultural diseases, earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis.
• Man-made disasters are due to technological hazards, including hazardous materials, power outages, nuclear blasts, cyber-attacks, and war. Both natural and man-made events can combine to create complex emergencies.

Hazards Defined

• Hazards include physical conditions, socio-economic disruptions, or environmental degradation that have the potential to be damaging.
• Examples range from droughts to floods, chemical plant locations near settlements, and improper agricultural practices.
• Man or the environment can cause hazards.

Exposure Described

• Exposure is the presence of people, infrastructure, housing, production capacities, and other tangible assets in areas prone to hazards.

Vulnerability Explained

• Vulnerability is the inability to resist a hazard or to respond when a disaster occurs.
• Those living on plains are more vulnerable to floods than those in higher areas.
• Factors such as age, health, environmental conditions, building quality, and location relative to hazards influence vulnerability.

Risk Factors

• Risk is the expected loss due to a hazard in a specific area over a period, considering the probability of harmful consequences.
• Risk is determined using the formula: Risk = Probability of Hazard x Degree of Vulnerability.

Risk Mapping Stages

• Risk mapping involves scientifically analyzing hazards, vulnerability, and capacity.
• Assessing risk is the basis for Mapping.
• Risk mapping includes risk analysis and risk evaluation.

Risk Analysis Components

• Risk analysis uses available information to estimate the risk a hazard poses to individuals and populations.
• The steps in risk analysis are hazard identification, hazard assessment, identifying elements at risk, vulnerability assessment, and risk estimation.

Risk Evaluation

• Risk evaluation involves incorporating values and judgements into the decision-making process, including risk associated with social, economic, and environmental factors.

Risk Reduction Measures

• Risk reduction involves structural and non-structural measures.
• Structural measures include using engineering solutions.
• Non structural measures consists of awareness and education.

Capacity Attributes

• Capacity includes the strengths and resources within a community or organization to manage disaster risks and strengthen resilience.
• It encompasses physical and socio-economic capacity.
• Included is the ability to rescue in the aftermath of disasters.

Resilience Defined

• Resilience is the capability of individuals, communities, organizations, and states to adapt to and recover from hazards without compromising long-term development.
• Resilience opposes vulnerability.

Early Warning Systems

• Early Warning Systems (EWS) are socio-technical systems designed to deliver timely and meaningful warning information.
• Warnings enable targeted systems to proactively respond to hazardous threats, avoiding or reducing disaster impacts.

Disaster Preparedness Aspects

• Disaster preparedness develops knowledge and capacities in governments, response organizations, communities, and individuals.
• This increases the ability to anticipate, respond to, and recover from likely, imminent, or current disasters.
• Preparedness builds the capacity to efficiently manage emergencies and achieve orderly transitions from response to sustained recovery.

Disaster Prevention Information

• Disaster prevention eliminates or reduces the likelihood of natural hazard events or their adverse impacts.
• Examples include constructing flood protection embankments.
• Prevention, though challenging to promote, is critical for developing nations managing disasters.
• Prevention planning addresses hazard identification and vulnerability assessment to determine appropriate emergency management strategies.
• It entails measures taken to eliminate the root causes that make people vulnerable to disaster.

Disaster Mitigation Techniques

• Mitigation involves reducing or neutralizing the impact of natural hazards by reducing social, functional, or physical vulnerability.
• Primary mitigation reduces hazard resistance and vulnerability.
• Secondary mitigation reduces the effects of the hazard through preparedness.
• Mitigation efforts recognize that disasters will occur, focusing on reducing their harmful effects on human suffering and economic assets.

Disaster Response Actions

• Disaster response (relief) involves providing assistance or intervention during or immediately after a crisis.
• Response aims to save lives, reduce further impacts on health and public safety, and meet basic needs.

Damage Assessment Process

• Damage assessment determines the nature, extent, loss, suffering, and harm to a community from a natural or human-caused disaster.

Damage Classification

• Severe damage means the facility or object cannot be used and requires complete reconstruction.
• Moderate damage signifies that the facility or object requires major repairs before effective use.
• Light damage refers to a facility or object that can be used for its intended purpose with minor repairs.

Crisis Counseling Defined

• Crisis counseling eliminates the emotional and psychological disturbances experienced by people affected by a disaster.
• Psycho-educational counseling classes facilitate it.
• It is a crucial part of recovery and reconstruction.
• It enables people to make right decisions, and supports people.

Needs of Crisis Counselling:

• Main goal is to decrease emotional pain, provide emotional support, ensure safety, and develop coping plans.
• It can also involves connecting individuals with community or health services for long-term support.
• Crisis counselling can be linked to future crisis prevention, changing attitudes, providing community help information, skills, and support to improve health and quality of life.
• It can be tied to health-related public policy and environments, is flexible, easy, and teachable to professionals; and can be delivered through internet technologies.

Needs Assessment Process

• Needs assessment estimates the financial, technical, and human resources required for recovery, reconstruction, and risk management programs.
• Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) is a globally recognized method for assessing physical damage, economic losses, and recovery costs after natural disasters.
• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) develops policies, guidelines, and coordination with State Disaster Management Authorities (SDMAs).
• The NDMA was put in place by the Government of India in 2005, with the Prime Minister as its chairperson.

Disaster Vulnerability Context of India

• India is highly vulnerable to natural disasters due to its geo-climatic conditions.
• Approximately 60% of its land is prone to earthquakes, over 40 million hectares to floods, about 8% to cyclones, and 69% to drought.

Floods: An Overview

• Floods occur when land submerges in the amount of water.
• It is called sudden submergence or inundation of lands.

Common Causes of Floods

• Occurrences of floods may come from natural and human causes
• Anthropogenic cause: clearing of forests, urban development, farming, and green house effect
• Natural Causes: Rainfall, storm surges, melting snow in the climate.

Impact of Floods

• Floods may occur when the intensity of unprepared people is too much, may cause drowning, or may affect the lifespan of people, which may become a dangerous risk.
• Flood can cause damage to a infrastructure and lead to loss of homes, roads, power supply, trees, vegetations due to loss of biodiversity.
• Diseases can spread due to the shallowness stagnant from water causing breakout of water diseases.

Managing/ Mitigating Floods

• Mitigation of floods can occur by water control and non-structural measures such as reservoirs, channels, dams, and watershed.
• Can occur by flood forecasting, flood warning, emergency preparedness, public information and education, flood relief.

Earthquakes : Defined

• Earthquakes, quakes, tremors, or temblors shake the surface from the sudden release of seismic waves.
• The focus is the point inside the earth where the pressure is released.
• Epicenter is the point on the Earth's surface above the focus.
• Tsunamis are caused when earthquakes beneath the sea.
• The study of earthquakes is seismology, uses a seismometer or seismograph is the instrument to measure seismic waves.

Causes and Effects of Earthquakes

• Earth’s plates constantly move along its outer surface, causing earthquakes.
• Volcanoes and tides can trigger seismicity, testing, and dams.
• The soil liquefies through granular material, and can cause rigid structures and buildings and bridges to tilt.
• Earthquakes can cause instability and lead to avalanches, most tsunamis is caused by magnitude 7.5 earthquake.

Destabilization of Earthquakes

• Electrical power, gas lines, ecological and social structures and loss of property due to an earthquake.
• The incident killed 80,000 people and injured around 1,00,000 and dislodged 3.5 million people in Muzaffarabad.

Landslides Overview:

• A landslide is a combination of geological failures/ processes which include slope failure, falling rocks, and debris flow under gravity.
• Landslides occur when gravitational occur when exceeding shear strength.

Landslides Causes

• Landslides happens due to heavy rain, snowmelt, rivers, deforestation, and developmental activities.

Landslide Effects

• Landslides disrupt vehicular movement, blocking streams of stones, leading to disruption of networks.
• Acts as death to life, killing 46 people and some others injured in Himachal Pradesh (2017).

Management and Mitigation of Landslides

• Management occurs consolidation of slope thus the slopes stability, degraded areas should be afforested and preserved.
• Wired stone block helps protect against landslide.
• Retaining walls should be constructed.
• Landslide hazard zonation mapping will help in preventing settlements.

Landslide Preventive Steps

• Draining, surface, awareness can reduce the impact of impeding landslides.

Cyclones Definition

• Cyclone refers to is any spinning storm that rotates around a low-pressure center, called the 'eye' of the storm.
• Cyclones are powerful winds blowing clockwise and anti-clockwise.

Cyclone Formation

• Warm temperatures cause moist air to rise, lowering pressure.
• Air from surrounding areas pushes in, becomes warm, moist, and rises.
• The Coriolis effect and Earth's rotation causes winds rotate faster.
• An eye forms with winds reaching 39 mph the storm is tropical, 74 mph leads to cyclone.
• Weakening starts when storms hit land because of lacking feed from ocean waters
• Some cyclones may last for week.

Most Cyclone Affected Areas

• India has a 7517 km coastline prone to cyclones.
• Some of the affected states Odisha, Gujrat, Karnataka caused 44 casualties
• Originated in Vietnam in 201.

Cyclones Effects and Management

• The Effects of cyclones is the characterization of strong winds
• Heavy rainfall causes the rise of sea level near coast, and loss of life and property.
• The management Cyclone control is in coastal plantations, weather monitoring, land use and strong halls construction.

Epidemics

• Epidemics occur when a known disease spreads rapidly in places where people are infected often.
• It often requires a susceptible population, disease presence, a type of mode of transport or large-scale that helps with people's contaminated water, poor sanitation, or vector population.

Types of Epidemics

• Common source epidemics: Spread from something contaminated through food or water.
• Host to host epidemics: From those infected with other infected people in indirect routes which is slower than the common epidermic
• Pathogen is something that causes a disease, which serves the intermediary transmitting host-to- host diseases.
• Common with beddings and surgical items.

Forest Fires Defined

• Common hazard to forests posing threst not only wealth the flora, disturbing biodiversity and ecology.

Sources of Forest Fires

• Occurs regularly worldwide.
• Heat can be generated from summer or neglect and by local inhabitants.

Types of Forest Fires

• Forest fires is divided into four categories:
• Underground
• Surface fire
• Ground fires
• Crown Fires
• Firestorms

Biological Disaster Info

• Biological Disaster happens due to of epidemics or intentional use biological through the harm to organisms or toxins in harm for humans.

Modes of Delivery of Biological Agents

• The are dispersed or spraying them infecting animals that leads to humans and contaminate food and aerosol biological

Use of Aerosols

• Aerosol helps in air dispersion forming mist can can cause diseases for livestock's, and some caused with spread from food and water also
• The spread is cause with infection or small pox, and Lassa viruses

Impacts of Biological Disasters

• Even though a biological attach is a small scale it causes a lot mortality ,morbidity, it becomes an obstacle in the capability.

Technological Disasters Info

• Technological hazards comes from dangerous procedures, hazards, failure, or humans.

Types of Technological Hazards

• Chemicals such as: Harmful to humans which accident natural hazard and terrorism
• Biological are substances the affect the health that also include diseases
• Nuclear occurs with accidental harming of the release of items
• Radiological hazards

Trends and Importance

• The growth for populations is at risk of disasters especially cyclone, land remain at risk with floods also the important for the stages of an disaster.

Disasters importance

• Disasters importance is an organization used to for preparation and assistance is provide for them and provide help for people.
• Aim to support people and security for all also help for communities and families

Phases of Disaster Management

• The four phases of disaster management are:
• Prevention
• Preparedness
• Response
• Recovery
• Managing it effectively can paying to each stage
• It helps improve what should the results or outcome in future

Definition of Prevention

• The first stage of disaster aims in to prevent the potential disasters and risks and hazards
• Involves the analysis for the vulnerability

Disasters Preparedness

• Preparing is known as the develop strategies on to deal effectively in potential disasters
• Also ensures that equipment's are in ready to use state.

Disasters Response

• Help guide the residents of the evacuation routes
• Help with medical assistance provide emergency shelters

Disasters Recovery Focus

• The last stage helps restore all the affects community
• Involves individuals from financial and rebuild, help improve communities in event and also emotional trauma due to the event

Disasters Shift

• The shift is a proactive of helping with the measure and traditional shift to help those that had occurred to these integration

Risk Assessment Types

• Approaches that harm people Qualitative or quantitative help the assessment Disaster risk including characteristics Identify all hazards of the social and evaluation of dimensions.

Main Components

• Risk analysis contains following The evaluation judgement Risk assessment and judgement enters.

Contemporary approaches to risk assessments

• The same hazard may be treated in the types of earthquake also for instance for the case of flooding.
• Impact different types for elements at risk
• Differentiate the objective from national, resources available at different levels.
• involve stakeholders to individual
• Should consider the mitigation preparedness
• Assess or help use hazard of estimation.
• Show how risk are calculated and used for estimation

Explores risk assessment in the content of disaster analyis, focusing on the definitions of vulnerability, hazard, and their relationship to risk indicators. It emphasizes statistical data for risk assessment and the importance of local resilience models and exposure databases.