How a Hazard Event May Turn into a Disaster in the Society

1. How a Hazard Event May Turn into a Disaster in the Society Tarmin Akther

2. Definition of Hazard The term hazard is defined as a threat that may cause to loss of life, injury, damage of assets, socio-economic and environmental distraction. On the other hand, hazard event is the occurrence of a hazard, which may affect socio-economic and environmental condition. Therefore, hazard event is the situation when a phenomenon is occurred. Hazard can be natural or manmade. Floods, earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, drought, wildfire, volcanic eruption etc are example of natural hazard and road accident, plane crash, oil split in river etc are example of human created hazard. Meaning of Disaster A hazard event becomes a disaster when it disrupts the normal ways of life of a society or community. It involves widespread human, material, economical and environmental loss to the society which exceeds the ability of the affected community to cope using its own resources (Grant et al., 2015). The hazard like floods, earthquake, cyclone, tsunami, drought, wildfire, volcanic eruption, road accident, plane crash, oil split in river etc. are termed as disasters when they are occurred in a region and heavily affected or destructed the inhabitation of society. How a hazard event turn into a disaster in the society A hazard is not itself a disaster, rather it only turn into a disaster when societal vulnerability meets with hazard. There are different factors that play a role to determine if a specific hazard becomes a disaster or not. Some factors are the degree and strength of hazard, exact capacities of the affected population in relation to the hazard and specific vulnerabilities of the affected population in relation to the hazard, (Wisner et al., 2004). There are some other factors which are manmade and help to increase the intensity and extent of a hazard forces to turn into a disaster; for example, deforestation, carbon emission, unplanned urbanization, etc. In each system, there have some innate power or ability to cope with an adverse condition for a short time which is called copping capacity. When a hazard arise in a system (society or community), it tries to mitigate this situation through its own capacity. When the coping capacity is completely exhausted but the system can’t move its normal way then disaster is come and the system requires external help to recover. The following diagram is prepared based on pressure and release (PAR) model which describe how hazard come into contact with vulnerability and leads a disaster. The PAR model describe a hazard solely does not turn into a disaster rather there have some driving forces. Driving forces indicates different societal vulnerabilities which meet up with hazard and simultaneously attract on society or community that ultimately lead a disaster. Therefore, all disasters come from hazard but all hazard are not may turn into a disaster. 2

3. How a Hazard Becomes a Disaster PAR Model Progression of Vulnerability Underlying Causes of Vulnerabilities Different Dynamic Pressures Unsafe Condition of Population Poverty (limited access to power infrastructure and resources) Local Scale Lack of food security, local education, appropriate skill, local investment, local market, service sector, freedom standard, Fragile physical environment dangerous location unsafe building institution, training, Failing of political, social and economic system Fragile local economy low level of income low level of living standard press ethical and Public actions lack of disaster preparedness prevalence disease Macro-forces Population expansion Rapid urbanization Environmental degradation exploitation of resources) of epidemic (over Disaster Vulnerability Disaster Hazard Events Cyclone Earthquake Floods Drought Tsunami Volcanic eruption Wildfire River Erosion Source: Wisner et al. (2008), p. 47. 3

4. According to the PAR model disaster is equal to hazard multiplied by vulnerability of the society. Disaster = Hazard × Vulnerability Where, vulnerability (V) is a function of adaptive capacity (AC), sensitivity (S) and exposure (E). V = f (AC, S, E) Adaptive capacity refers to the adjustment ability after disaster. Coping capacity and adaptive capacity may differ from duration of time. Adaptive capacity is long time process than coping capacity. The relation between vulnerability and adaptive capacity is negative. The system is more vulnerable is it has less adaptive capacity. Sensitivity implies the degree of response of a system against adverse effect. The higher degree of sensitivity refers to greater vulnerability. Exposure indicates the situation at risk or dangers. Exposure also positively related with vulnerability. Cyclone ‘Sidr’ and cyclone ‘Aila’ which attacked on the coastal region of Bangladesh in 2007 and 2009 respectively as example of hazard event those turn into disaster. Due to cyclone Sidr and cyclone Aila the normal living pattern in that society was changed. The hazard event was influenced more intensively because of root causes, dynamic pressure and unsafe condition of population. The coastal region is characterized by high rate of poverty, weak political, social and economical system, lack of local institutions and infrastructural development, education and training facilities, local investment, local market etc. On the other hand, this area is near to bay of bangal. For this reason, natural hazards directly affect on this region. Huge amount of damage was made in the period of cyclone Sidr and Aila was occurred. Many people died. Many households are migrated. Many people lost their way of livelihood. Soil intrusion in cultivable land was damaged crop and reduces soil productivity which has long term effect. Destruction of road, infrastructure and communication system was postponed economic growth. How the climate change is correlated with disasters? In the above diagram we see that how disaster is occurred through interaction of vulnerability and hazard events. Now the thinking issue is that is there any relation between disaster and climate change. Climate change refers to the change in average weather condition over the time. Climate change often use synonym of global warming. The term global warming describes a gradual increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans. In recent years, to describe about natural disaster often use the term climate change disaster. Whereas, climate change disaster refers to a disaster that is intensified directly by climate change. To avoid responsibility and accountability, sometimes a disaster could be termed as being caused by climate change whereas it actually caused by mismanagement or lack of poor governance (Grant et al., 2015). However, the scientific evidence indicates that due to climate change sea surface temperature and sea-level is increased day by day that will be intensified cyclone activity and heighten storm surges (Dasgupta, et al., 2014). 4

5. Due to several reasons the world’s temperature is increased. Rapid industrialization and urbanization, rapid growth of population, deforestation etc are some causes of higher rate of carbon emission that assume main culprit of global warming. In recent years, global leaders increase emphasize on controlling emission of carbon. As global warming causes climate change, that increases the frequency of abnormal behavior of nature, such as, drought, over rainfall, cyclone, flood, tsunami etc. Climate change may increase the intensity of hazard and that may turn into a disaster. We can consider Bangladesh as an example of hazard-prone region which adversely affected by climate change in future. To approximate cyclones and related storm surges due to changing climate, consider to raise sea level by 27 cm, increase wind speed by 10% and landfall during high tide to approximately by 2050. It is also predicted that due to rising sea level one-third of Bangladesh will sink under sea water (Dasgupta, et al., 2014). Some studies peak the point that the current saltwater intrusion in coastal region of Bangladesh is causing of sea level rise or changing patterns of rainfall due to climate change (Grant et al., 2015). As a result, farmers face danger of crop failure due to reduce of land productivity in different areas. Saltwater intrusion also result shortage of drinking water, reduce employment opportunities, force to migrate people in urban area and so on. Therefore, climate change is one of the important factors to increase frequency and extent of natural hazard and disaster. Not all natural hazard and disaster are result from climate change but climate change increase the risk of vulnerability for the global people. 5

6. List of References Dasgupta, S., Huq, M. Khan, Z.H., Ahmed, M.M.Z., Mukherjee, N., Khan, M.F. and Pandy, K. (2014). Cyclone in a changing climate: the Case of Bangladesh, Climate and Development, 6(2), pp. 96-110. Grant, S., Tamason, C.C. and Jensen, P.K.M. (2015). Climatization: A Critical Perspective of Farming Disasters as Climate Change Events, Climate Risk Management, 10, pp. 27- 34. Wisner, B., Piers Blaikie, P., Cannon, T. and Davis, I. (2004). At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters, 2nd edition, Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London and New York. 6