
To begin the processes of risk analysis and risk assessment, which is covered in chapter 3, community leaders must identify all of the hazards that the community has experienced in the past and could possibly experience in the future. This hazard assessment, as it is often called, must include not only the actual physical hazards that exist but also the expected secondary hazards, including social reactions and conditions. Understandably, it is impossible to plan for or prevent every possible contingency, so most government and other organized emergency management entities focus their efforts only on those hazards that would result in the greatest undesirable consequences.ĭisaster managers must try to imagine each scenario that could manifest within a given community or country as a result of the geologic, meteorological, hydrologic, biological, economic, technological, political, and social factors that exist. Thankfully, disaster managers need worry only about those that have a non-negligible likelihood of occurrence and that are damaging or devastating should they occur. The actual number of hazards that exist worldwide is staggering, and the list is by no means limited to what is found in this or any other text. It is only logical that someone treating the community’s or country’s risk have knowledge of what hazards exist and where. The first steps that must be taken in any effective disaster management effort are the identification and profiling of hazards. Hazard Identification and Hazard Profiling The analysis and management of risk arising from these hazards is the focus of chapter 3. This chapter begins with a short description of the disaster management processes of hazard identification and hazard analysis, sometimes referred to as hazard profiling, followed by a listing and descriptions of many of the hazards that possess catastrophic potential-in other words, those hazards that are capable of causing a disaster. Consider the words of Chinese General Sun Tsu, who wrote, “Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles.”

The capacity to manage risk successfully-whether for an individual, a community, or a country-is built on a sound understanding of the hazards that threaten. To prepare for every possible contingency is simply not an option. Economic, industrial, and sociopolitical factors influence vulnerability and provide sources of technological and intentional hazard. A country’s physical location dictates what geologic, hydrologic, and meteorological forces are possible. As individuals, however, the hazards we face are considerably limited on account of genetics, geographic location, spatial movements, personal habits, activities, finances, education, and a measure of pure chance.įor individual nations, these hazard profiles are likewise limited to a degree. And while the vast majority of these events inflict no direct physical impact on our person, they tug at our conscience and challenge the notion that disaster risk reduction is possible. Owing to the 24-hour news cycle and an increasingly globalized economy, we bear witness to a daily barrage of disasters. As a global society, we must contend with an array of hazards that may seem both limitless and daunting.
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Awareness of the hazards that affect a nation or region and full understanding of the causes and consequences of that hazard “portfolio” are the first steps in the disaster reduction process known as disaster risk management.Īll facets of life include some degree of risk, and the source of that risk is a wide range of hazards that we are still struggling to understand. Following this is a listing and descriptions of many of the hazards that possess catastrophic potential-in other words, those hazards that are capable of causing a disaster. This chapter begins with a short description of the disaster management processes of hazard identification and hazard analysis. Moreover, with globalization, the speed and ease of international travel, and the emergence of global climate change patterns, every nation is connected to every other nation on the planet. Economic, industrial, and sociopolitical factors dictate hazards of technological and intentional origin.

Physical location is the primary factor dictating what natural hazards a nation faces. The global society must contend with an array of hazards that may seem limitless, but which is actually limited owing to an individual’s genetics, spatial movements, habits, activities, and geographic locations. The source of risk is the wide range of hazards that are faced in almost every facet of life.

There are many known hazards, including natural, man-made, and intentional.
