Online Class Lecture on

“Environmental Hazard: Natural and Man Induced”Date: 09th May 2020; Time: 02pm to 03pm

By

Dr. Pintu Kumar Assistant Professor

University Deptt. of Geography,

Magadh University, Bodh Gaya

Class: M.A. 3rd Semester

Magadh University, Bodh Gaya

Outline of the Lecture

Meaning and Concept Hazard

Concept of Vulnerability, Risk and Disaster

Concept of Environmental Hazard

Types of Environmental Hazard

Definition – A Rare or Extreme Events in the natural (or

man made) environment that adversely affects human lives,

properties or activities to the extent of causing a disaster is

known as Hazard.

Hazards are potentially damaging physical events,

phenomena, or human activities that cause loss of life,

injury, property damage, social and economic disruption, or

environmental degradation. They are external factors that

affect the society or elements at risk. Hazards have the

potential to cause disasters.

Concept of Hazard, Vulnerability, Risk and Disaster

Vulnerability is defined as the degree of loss resulting from

the potentially damaging phenomena. The area may be called high or

low vulnerable depending upon geological & geographical and other

factors.

Risk is also used to refer to the expected losses from a given

hazard to a given element at risk, over a specified future time period.

“A measure of probability and severity of adverse events to health,

property, the environment or other things of value”

Disaster is a sudden, calamitous event that seriously disrupts

and causes huge losses of human, property, and economic or

environment with more intensity or revenue.

The combination of hazards, vulnerability and inability to

reduce the potential negative consequences of risk results in disaster.

(VULNERABILITY+ HAZARD ) / CAPACITY = DISASTER

Hazards were largely considered as acts of God, divine

forces of Nature in early human history. This thought

was fatalistic and did not resonate the societal

responsibility in causing disaster (manifestation of a

hazard).

Environmental Hazards: An Environmental Hazards

is an event which has the potential to threaten the

surrounding natural environment or adversely after

people‟s health, including pollution and natural

disasters such as storms and earth quakes.

Types of Environmental Hazard

1. Natural Hazard 2. Technological Hazard

3. Chronic Hazard 4. Social Hazard

5. Biological Hazard

Natural

Hazard

Social

Hazard

Biological

Hazard

Technological

Hazard Chronic

Hazard

•Hydrological(Flood, Drought, etc.)

•Meteorological

or Atmospheric (Storm, Cyclone, etc.)

•Geophysical or

Geological (Earth Quake, Valcono

etc.)

Animal Stampede,

Virus, Bacteria, SARS,

COVID-19

• Industrial (Bhopal Gas Tragedy, 1984)

•Structural Collapse (Bridge Damage)

•Nuclear (Japan Nuc Reactor)

•Computer

•Transportation

War, Famine,

Riots, Violence,

Silent or ElusiveFood Insecurity, Soil Erosion,

Riverine Erosion, etc

Environmental Hazard

Source: Based on Personal Observation and Concept @ Pintu Kumar

Types of hazards – Hazards can be classified across

many dimensions. The most commonly used

classification method classifies hazards according to its

origin. 1. Natural & 2. Anthropogenic

a) Geophysical – The phenomena originating from

inside the earth as a result of the various

geological, geophysical and tectonic activities. The

dynamic nature of earth‟s crust resulted in the

geophysical hazards. Example - Earthquake, Volcano,

Mass Movement (Dry)

a) Meteorological - Events caused by short-lived/small

to meso scale atmospheric processes (in the

spectrum from minutes to days) Example –

Thunderstorm, Lightning etc.

c) Hydrological - Events caused by imbalance in

the normal hydrological cycle and/or

overflow of bodies of water caused by wind set-

up Example - Flood, Urban Flooding, Mass

Movement (wet) etc.

d) Climatological - Events caused by long-

lived/meso to macro scale atmospheric

processes (in the spectrum from intra-seasonal to

multi-decadal climate variability) Example -

Extreme Temperature, Drought, Wildfire etc.

e) Biological - Disaster caused due to exposure of

living organisms to germs and toxic substances

Characteristics of Environmental Hazards

Magnitude – is the strength or force of the hazard

event. The scale of measurement varies across hazards.

While earthquake is measured in Richter scale or

Modified Mercalli Intensity scale , Hurricanes are

measured in Saffir Simpson Hurricane scale. Certain

hazards have no well-defined scale of measurement and

are measured based on their impacts.

Duration – is the time during which a hazard event

persists

Seasonality – The particular season in which the

hazards are more likely to occur

Spatial Extent – The area affected by hazard

Coppola in his book Introduction to International Disaster

Management classifies 5 types of hazards -

1. Natural Hazards – Hazards occurring from extreme or

common physical processes e.g. Earthquakes, Floods,

Tsunamis, Hurricanes etc. Natural hazards can be further

categorized as:a. Hydro meteorological or atmospheric hazards – Floods, Droughts etc.

b. Geophysical or geological hazards – Earthquake, Tsunamis, Volcanoes etc.

2. Social Hazards – These originates in social systems and are

caused or exacerbated by human actions. e.g. Famines, Social

Conflicts, Wars, Complex Emergencies Sen‟s seminal work on

„entitlement theory‟ examines how the Great Bengal famine of

1943 was caused due to anthropogenic factors rather than crisis

of food due to drought. Social hazards like complex

emergencies often find less media and donor attention than

natural hazards. Also they are more political and complicated.

3. Biological Hazards – This type of hazards are originated from

biological agents likes Virus, Bacteria etc. e.g. AIDS, Foot and

Mouth disease, SARS, Ebola,Swine Flu, Corona COVID-19 etc.

4. Technological Hazards – Originated from the interaction of

society, technology and natural systems. E.g. Chernobyl disaster

(Ukraine) of 1986, Bhopal Gas Tragedy (India) of 1984, Andhra

Pradesh Gas Leakage, 2020. It can be further classified as

a) Industrial hazards - Bhopal Gas Tragedy (India) of 1984

b) Structural collapse hazards – Flyover collapse (Kolkata,

India) 2016

c) Nuclear hazards - Chernobyl disaster (Ukraine) of 1986

d) Computer hazards – Ransomware attack (India) 2017

e) Transportation hazards –Gyaneshwari Express accident (West

Bengal ), 2010

5. Chronic hazards- long term events or cyclical events.

These are also called silent hazards or elusive hazards as these

are very hard to identify. It originates due to repeated

exposures but have very little perceivable impact in time and

space. e.g. Riverine erosion, food insecurity, Land

degradation ,Soil Piping, Soil Erosion etc.