Natural Hazards and Their Effect on Rich and Poor Countries

Natural Hazards and Their Effect on Rich and Poor Countries 'Poor countries are more at risk from natural hazards than rich

countries.'

For this question to be answered the meaning of the word "risk" needs

to be considered carefully. It may be referring to the risk of loss of

lives or money. Perhaps it is referring to geographical location

creating more or less of a risk. Natural hazards can cause direct

risks and indirect risks. It can have a wide range of interpretations,

so therefore each of them need to be carefully considered.

It is important to understand why people live in these "risky" areas.

Understanding of this is a key issue into understanding the difference

between rich and poor countries. As natural hazards are fairly

unpredictable, many people feel it is not going to occur during their

lifetime and therefore they take the risk. Some of these people are

happy to take the risk, and think of it as a kind of "Russian

Roulette" and consider it to be almost destiny. In Economically Less

Developed Countries (ELDC's) there is often a lack of alternatives due

to rapidly increasing populations so they are forced to live on fault

lines, or unstable slopes. Rapid urbanisation creates unstable

populations in urban areas, forcing people to live on marginal land

illegally. Also the danger and therefore the risk of natural hazards

are always changing due to climatic change and deforestation (both

caused by human interference to a degree) and perhaps this means that

land use plans are not up to dat...

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... countries could maximise the ability to

export goods. These cities tend to be the primate cities of the

country for example Lagos, Nigeria. As discussed earlier, there are

proportionately more ELDC's along the tropics which is the area

vulnerable to hurricanes. These coastal zone cities will be subject to

an increased risk as a result of global climatic change.

Both rich and poor countries suffer from natural hazards. I would

agree that poorer countries are more vulnerable than rich countries as

they do not have as much money to spend on protecting themselves. Also

they tend to have much higher population densities so more people are

going to be affected. However, richer countries are affected

economically. Poorer countries are therefore are more at risk at

loosing lives due to natural hazards than richer countries.