Impacts of Natural Disasters on Public Health and the Envrionment Environmental Science Introduction The occurrences of natural disasters have been increasing over the years (Laframboise, M. N., & Loko, M. B., 2012). The impacts of natural disasters can vary widely with the type and severity of the disaster as well as with the preparedness of the affected populations. According to Laframboise, M. N., and Loko, M. B. (2012), “Disasters are classified as geophysical (earthquakes), meteorological (storms), hydrological (floods), climatological (droughts), or biological (epidemics) (p.6).” Disasters affect communities in various ways and can include short and long term effects. There may be physical impacts, public health and environmental impacts, social and psychosocial impacts, demographic impacts, economic impacts, and political impacts (Lindell and Prater, 2003). Natural disasters have been shown to disproportionately affect low income communities and countries more heavily than wealthier areas (Lindell and Prater, 2003). Noji, Eric K. (1996) states that, “from 1965 to 1992, more than 90% of all natural-disaster victims lived in Asia and Africa (np.).” Lindell and Prater (2003) provide further statistics and explain that low-income countries suffer approximately 3,000 deaths per disaster while high-income countries suffer approximately 500 deaths per disaster. According to the book; The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation (1999), the environmental impacts of natural disasters are relatively short and many natural disasters in the long term can even be beneficial (Appendix A: Environmental Impacts of Natural Disasters, 1999). Laframboise, M. N., and Loko, M. B. (2012) explain that natural di... ... middle of paper ... ...0.3201/eid2003.131230 Laframboise, M. N., & Loko, M. B. (2012). Natural Disasters: Mitigating Impact, Managing Risks (No. 12-245). Andrews McMeel Publishing. Lindell, M. K., & Prater, C. S. (2003). Assessing community impacts of natural disasters. Natural Hazards Review, 4(4), 176-185. Malilay, J., Batts, D., Ansari, A., Miller, C. W., & Brown, C. M. (2013). Natural disasters & environmental hazards. Retrieved from: http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2014/chapter-2-the-pre-travel-consultation/natural-disasters-and-environmental-hazards Noji, E. K. (Ed.). (1997). The public health consequences of disasters. Oxford University Press. Noji, E. K. (2005). Public health issues in disasters. Critical care medicine, 33(1), S29-S33. Watson, J. T., Gayer, M., & Connolly, M. A. (2007). Epidemics after Natural Disasters. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 13(1), 1-5.
All over the world hundreds of disasters happen every year, no matter how big or how small they are, they can effect a community somewhere and can cause mutilation. A disaster is defined as “a natural event such as a flood, earthquake, or hurricane that causes great damage or loss of life” (“Disaster”, n.d) and from these disasters we get many risks. Risks are what come from a natural disaster, for instance a hurricane. A hurricane is “a rotating low-pressure weather system that has organized thunderstorms but no fronts” (“Canadian Hurricane Centre”, 2013). A hurricane can cause serious danger, harm and loss of either personal belongings or life. Hurricane Hazel, a storm that hit the Toronto are, was a huge storm for Canada which many Canadians
Bissell, R. (2010). Catastrophic Readiness and Response Course, Session 6 – Social and Economic Issues. Accessed at http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/crr.asp
Emergency management is a career about managing risk that are both technological and naturally occurring. Though these two terms are synonymous with each other in-terms of modern conceptualization of disasters; this has not always been the case. In the developmental history of emergency management these two sources of disaster; were often seen as two completely independent sources of danger, and as a result the emergency management community encountered steep and costly learning curve in managing the hazards associated with these sources risk.
Perry, R. W., & Lindell, M. K. (2007). Disaster Response. In W. L. Waugh, & K. Tiernery, Emergency Management: Principles and Practice for Local Government (pp. 162-163). Washington D.C.: International City/County Management Association.
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
In 2017 alone, the United States experienced 3 flooding and tropical cyclone events deemed by NOAA [3] as weather disasters. These events accumulated an estimated 265 billion dollars’ worth of ‘damage, as well as significant loss of life [3]. Each of these three events were described as “100-year” or even “500-year” flooding and storm events. With the reassurance of these catastrophic events in such close proximity to one another, it seems a new normal has established itself.
Rygel, L., O’Sullivan, D., and Yarnal, B. (2006). A Method for Constructing a Social Vulnerability Index: An Application to Hurricane Storm Surges in a Developed Country. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change. 11, 741-764. DOI: 10.1007/s11027-006-0265-6. http://www.cara.psu.edu/about/publications/Rygel_et_al_MASGC.pdf.
I found a lot of useful information to include in this paper. A database I found really interesting was Natural News; it had a bunch of interesting facts. According to Natural News, the number natural disasters in the past 20 years have increased by four times the amount. The Earth experiences approximately 500 natural disasters per year compared to 120 a year in the 1980’s. In the 1980’s around 175 million people were affected by natural disasters per year and now it has increased by 70 percent to nearly 255 million people. The increasing number of natural disasters has primarily hurt third world countries the most. They don’t have the resources nor are they able to recover from such devastating tragedies (Natural
In this week’s Disaster Management lecture and seminar course we discussed mainly the two phases of Response and Recovery. In these phases they cover what is vital and crucial to individuals, towns, communities, cities, states, all who have been affected by a disaster. These two phases come in hand when and after a disaster strikes an overpopulated area. In class Professor Urby introduced the class to a guest speaker Adrian Dominguez the University Safety and Risk Manager of Texas A&M International University and Jessica Perez the University Environmental Health and Safety officer in Texas A&M International University.. Dominguez explained his credentials as of working in the TAMIU safety and emergency management department. He discussed his involvement in the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and how his involvement with that organization influenced his own process of risk management in TAMIU. Dominguez was able to implement the five phases of emergency management, prevention, preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery into his experience into the field of
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and other naturally occurring disaster will come in surprise and will cause damage to infrastructure and loss of life. Even though many natural disasters are unpredictable, “it is possible to assess the circumstances that increase vulnerability to a natural disaster ahead of time and take steps to prevent complications” (Harkness and DeMarcus, 2016, p. 407). Coordination with community leaders and providers is essential to effective preparation and successful disaster response. In instances of catastrophic events, leaders are needed to direct people and ensure that everyone is safe and all areas are attended. Good coordination with community leader and providers will lead to better preparedness and easy
Natural disasters have always disastrous effects. These could be economic, social and/or environmental. Infrastructure damage can severely obstruct economic activity; social effects can include homelessness, illness, loss of life, injury, and destruction of communities; and environmental damage can range from the tree felling to landscape reshaping. While natural disaster can cause one or more of the aforementioned effects whichever country it impacts regardless of its economic situation, this essay will explore its differentiated effect on LEDCs and MEDCs.
Disasters appears as natural disasters, costliest events, flooding events, tropical cyclones, earthquakes, wild fires, hurricanes, storms, hurricane-force winds, winter storm, wea...
Goyet, Claude De Ville De. Natural Disaster Mitigation and Relief. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 June 0000. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
Communities throughout the country and the world are susceptible to disasters. The environment and location of a community often predisposes a greater susceptibility to the type of disaster. For example Central Pennsylvania would not be susceptible to an avalanche however communities in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado would have increase vulnerability. Understanding the types of disaster for which the community is susceptible is essential for emergency preparedness (Nies & McEwen, 2011). All communities are susceptible to man-made disasters; terrorism, fires, and mass transit accidents and emergency preparedness are essential. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) is responsible for disaster planning.
Of the four phases of emergency management, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, perhaps the place that individuals can make the biggest difference in their own state of resiliency and survival of a disaster is in the preparedness phase. Being prepared before a disaster strikes makes sense yet many people fail to take even simple, precautionary steps to reduce the consequences of destruction and mayhem produced by natural events such as earthquakes, volcanos and tornados (see Paton et al, 2001, Mileti and Peek, 2002; Tierney, 1993, Tierney et al, 2001).