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Many people take natural hazards for granted because they are
unaware of the full range of negative effects that can result from a
hazard event. Hazards can affect not only people but also animals and
plants. Can you think of any additional items that might be impacted?
Due to the rarity of disasters, some people may find this to be a
difficult task. On the other hand, one should attempt to consider who
and what might be impacted if something goes wrong. Starting at
home is the ideal starting point (Figure 2.1-1). It is the same to
become familiar with smaller elements that are vulnerable to dangers
as it is to do so with larger elements that are vulnerable to greater
sources of danger. A list of those who may be impacted by various
man-made hazards at home and in one's neighborhood can be
created. What can one do to get these out of harm's way?
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Elements at Risk and Exposure
The people, properties, economic activities, and private and public
services that could be threatened by a negative event are considered
elements at risk.
Identification and mapping of the elements at risk as well as
vulnerability assessment go hand in hand with risk assessment of
vulnerability. Most of the attention is placed on reducing vulnerability
in order to reduce risk. Do you understand why this is the case? The
first step in reducing vulnerability is to understand the components
that are vulnerable to each type of hazard.
Risks are also a function of hazards, as the risk model (Risk = Hazard x
Exposure x Vulnerability) demonstrates. Hazard describes the
likelihood of an event occurring at a specific magnitude. The topic of
hazards will be covered in more detail in the following chapter. The
term "exposed elements" can refer to the quantity of people or
buildings in the exposed area. These two categories of elements at
risk have the most accurate and objective statistics available. The
combination of both hazard and exposed population provides the
physical exposure:
PhExp= Hazard x Exposure
where:
PhExp= Physical Exposure for the affected area
Hazard= Probability of occurrence of an event at a given magnitude.
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Exposure= Total Population living in the affected area for each event.
An example of a physical exposure map is shown in Figure 2.1-2.
Although estimates of risk are not shown, such maps are useful
indicators of the possible impacts of the occurrence of hazardous
events on people and residential structures.
Social, Environmental, and Economic Dimensions of
Exposure and Vulnerability
When a disaster strikes, the first things that are reported in the
tri-media are casualties (deaths, missing persons, and injured people)
and property losses and damages. The effects on the other elements
become more important long after a disaster occurs. These are the
effects that are more difficult to quantify or measure than property
losses or damages. Social, environmental, and economic losses are
divided into tangible and intangible types. (Figure 2.1-3)
Social. Demography is the most significant aspect of the social
dimensions of exposure and vulnerability. Population density maps
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are excellent indicators of exposure and vulnerability. The social
dimensions of exposure and vulnerability cover a wide range of
topics, including migration, social groups, health and well-being,
education, culture, institutions, and governance. Can you explain how
using these maps can help prevent disasters?
Environmental. Location and built structures are considered under
the physical aspects of exposure and vulnerability. Figure 2.1-4 shows
before-and-after satellite images of a location in Tacloban City (Leyte)
caused by Typhoon Yolanda. The hazardous event, which resulted in
the destruction of numerous buildings, showed how, in part because
of location, a city's exposed elements can be vulnerable to typhoons
and storm surges.
BEFORE AFTER
Here is a detailed list of the physical elements exposed to various
hazards:
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1. Essential Facilities
Educational Facilities
Medical and Healthcare Facilities (e.g., hospital and
clinics)
Emergency response Facilities (e.g., Fire Station, Police
Station, and Shelters)
Government Offices
Recreational or Tourist Facilities (e.g., Hotels, Resorts,
Parks, Public Gardens, Camping Grounds, Sporting
Areas, etc.)
Places of Worship (e.g., Churches or Mosques)
Banks and Financial Centers
Markets and Shopping Centers
Cemeteries
2. Industrial and High Potential Loss Facilities and Facilities
containing hazardous materials.
Dams and Ponds
Fuel reservoirs, Pipelines, and Pumps
Power (electric) generating plants and lines
Multi-purpose hydropower plants, water tanks, and
lines
Food processing Facilities
3. Transportation Lifelines
Highways, Bridges, Railway tracks, and Tunnels
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Bus Facilities
Port and harbor Facilities
Airport Facilities and Runways
4. Utility Lifelines
Potable Water Facilities, Waste Water Facilities,
Pipelines, and Distribution lines
Oil and Natural gas system Facilities, Pipelines, and
Distribution lines
Electric power Facilities and Distribution lines
Communication Facilities (Stations) and Distribution
lines (cable and networks)
Exposure and vulnerability in the context of the environment also
includes aspects that go beyond the physical. Potentially fragile
natural systems, such as low-lying areas, coastal regions, and
mountainous regions, are also included. The environment and human
settlement can sometimes increase a population's susceptibility to
dangerous events. Consider the preference of some people to live in
floodplains along important river courses, which increases their risk
of flooding. More often than not, the construction of food control
structures like dikes and channel modifications gives locals a false
sense of security and encourages more people to move there and
settle. Extreme events may exceed the capacity of flood control
structures, which raises the risk of flooding as a result of both the
hazard event and increased exposure.
Economic. Business interruptions caused by accessibility issues, the
loss of jobs and access to employment, and a decrease in government
revenue as a result of businesses and individuals' inability to pay
taxes at a time when more money is required for relief and
rehabilitation are some of the economic effects of hazard events. The
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gross domestic product may be significantly impacted by disasters
(GDP).
SECTION-ASSESSMENT
1. If your choice of applying protective measures is limited, which
five specific physical elements at risk would you prioritize?
Explain
2. How different are exposure to flood hazard of people from cities
in developed countries and people who lives in cities in
less-developed countries? Cite examples
3. Name three places no exposure and disaster risk to flood hazard
in your locality. Are you located in any of these places?
4.
According to the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme),
vulnerability is “the degree of loss to each element should a hazard of
a given severity occur”. Physical, social, economic, and environmental
factors determine the likelihood and severity of damage due to a
given hazard. Recent volcanic, hydrometeorological, and earthquake
hazard events have highlighted the necessity of determining the
degree to which the Philippines' vulnerable regions are. This will
enable the resources at hand to function more effectively and lessen
vulnerabilities. These actions include hazard mitigation, warning and
preparation, capacity building, and prediction and warning systems.
To maintain efforts to reduce vulnerability, the root causes of
vulnerability, such as poverty and poor governance, must also be
addressed.
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Social, Environmental, and Economic Factors of
Vulnerability
Social Factor. Individuals, families, and communities' level of social
well-being has a direct bearing on how vulnerable they are to risks.
Social wellbeing is influenced by many factors, with morality, good
governance, levels of education, literacy, and training, safety and
security, access to fundamental human rights, social equity, and
information and awareness. Additionally, physical, mental, and
psychological health are important factors. Not everyone is equally
vulnerable. More vulnerable than others are minority groups, the
elderly, orphans, nursing mothers and their children, and people with
disabilities. Consideration must be given to the gender issue in
general and the role of women in particular. (UNISDR 2002:47), and is
covered in more detail in the section below.
Increased levels of vulnerability can also be brought on by ignorance
and lack of information. People are prone to disasters because of this
vulnerability. Simply put, they lack the knowledge necessary to heed
warnings, avoid danger, and take protective measures. A lack of
knowledge about the steps that must be taken to construct safe
structures in safe locations, or safe evacuation routes and
procedures, may be the cause of this ignorance rather than poverty.
In times of severe distress, other populations might not know where
to turn for assistance. This should not be interpreted as a defense of
ignoring the coping mechanisms of the vast majority of disaster
victims, though. The most disaster-prone societies have a wealth of
knowledge regarding disaster threats and countermeasures. Any
efforts to offer assistance from the outside should take into account
this understanding (UN, 1992:9). The use of indigenous knowledge in
disaster risk management initiatives supports the aforementioned
claim.
It is inevitable that cultural practices will change, and many of the
changes that all societies experience make them more susceptible to
dangers. All societies, it goes without saying, are constantly evolving
and in a state of transition.
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These transitions include nomadic populations that become
sedentary, rural residents who move to urban areas, and both rural
and urban residents who move from one economic level to another.
They are frequently very disruptive and uneven, leaving gaps in social
coping mechanisms and technology. In a broader sense, these
instances represent the transition from non-industrialized to
industrializing societies.
The introduction of new construction materials and building designs
into a society accustomed to traditional materials and designs is an
example of how these transitions have an impact. The urbanization of
the rural population, which also leads to the loss of the social support
system or network to preserve moral character and aid in the relief
and recovery from the impact of hazards, serves as an example of
this. The population becomes increasingly reliant on outside
interveners to assist in this process because the traditional coping
mechanisms may not be available in the new environment.
Conflicting or developing cultural practices may also result in civil war,
such as the xenophobic violence that broke out in South Africa in the
middle of the 2000s. Communal violence may also be brought on by
religious or socioeconomic divisions.
Environmental Factor. The discussion of environmental aspects of
vulnerability covers a very broad range of issues in the interacting
social, economic, and ecological aspects of sustainable development
relating to disaster risk reduction. The key aspects of environmental
vulnerability can be summarized by the following five distinctions:
● The extent of natural resource depletion;
● The state of resource degradation;
● Loss of resilience of the ecological systems;
● Loss of biodiversity; and
● Exposure to toxic and hazardous pollutants (UNISDR 2002:47).
Deforestation leads to rapid rain run-off, which contributes to
flooding. The creation of drought conditions and their relative
severity and length are mainly natural phenomena. Drought
conditions may be exacerbated by:
● poor cropping patterns;
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● overgrazing;
● the stripping of topsoil;
● poor conservation techniques;
● depletion of both the surface and subsurface water supply;
and
● unchecked urbanization (UN 1992:9).
It is a truism that our own exploitation of the environment is the
source of our catastrophes. The issue of cholera in rural areas is a
good example of this interaction. Water pollution by human waste
material is the causal factor in cholera. Communities and authorities
are aware of this fact, yet year after year, the same areas that are
susceptible to cholera are overwhelmed by it. On the one hand, the
problem lies in the inadequate provision of sanitation and safe water
by the relevant authorities. On the other hand, communities have the
choice to take action towards reducing their vulnerability and taking
responsibility for their well-being. A simple start would be the
construction of pit latrines, treating water prior to consumption, and
educating children.
Economic Factor. While many different factors work together to affect
how vulnerable a country is to hazards, poverty is probably the single
most significant factor. Therefore, reducing vulnerability requires the
eradication of poverty.
The population's economic situation is related to both the severity of
losses in terms of people, property, and infrastructure as well as the
population's ability to handle and recover from negative effects. The
wealthiest people (men and women) either survive the impact of a
hazard without suffering any negative effects or are able to recover
quickly, according to nearly all disaster studies (due mostly to the
presence of insurance, savings, investments, or some other financial
instrument to fall back on). People in urban areas are forced to live on
hills that are prone to landslides or settle near rivers that always
overflow their banks because of poverty and a lack of access to land
and basic services. Because of poverty, poor subsistence farmers are
more likely to be affected by droughts than wealthy people, and
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famine is more frequently caused by a lack of purchasing power than
by a shortage of food.
Poverty is increasingly the cause of many women and men being
compelled to relocate from rural areas to cities in search of
employment opportunities, to other regions of a country, or even
across international borders in order to survive (e.g., migration from
Zimbabwe into South Africa). The authorities face significant
challenges as a result of the crisis-driven migration and rapid
urbanization, including unplanned settlements, longer-term
development, and emergency assistance for those who have been
displaced. People are compelled to construct temporary, unsafe
homes in crowded, dangerous areas due to poverty and a lack of
access to land (UNDP, 1992:6).
People who don't have access to basic services like water and
sanitation are forced to use contaminated water for drinking and
cooking, which increases their risk of contracting diseases and
contributing to epidemics. People who lack access to alternative fuels
or electricity are compelled to cut down trees for firewood, which
worsens the environment and raises the risk of flooding. Similar to
this, using naked flames for heating and lighting can start devastating
house fires, especially in urban areas like Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, the
Cape Flats in South Africa, and Antananarivo.
Additionally, there is a clear correlation between the rise in
population and the increase in disaster losses. It is inevitable that
more people will be impacted by hazards as a result of a rapidly
growing population because more people will be required to live and
work in dangerous areas. There will most likely be a greater impact if
there are more people and buildings where a disaster strikes.
increasing numbers of individuals vying for scarce resources (such as
employment). Land and opportunities may cause conflict.
Additionally, this conflict may lead to migration brought on by the
crisis (UN 1992:6).
The elimination of poverty and the development of sustainable
livelihoods must continue to be given top priority in all planning for
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disaster risk reduction and development across all spheres of
government.
According to the (UNISDR 2017) UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction
– disaster risk is defined as:
The potential loss of life, injury or destroyed or damaged assets which
could occur to a system, society or a community in a specific period
of time, determined probabilistically as a function of hazard,
exposure, and capacity.
The Pressure Model demonstrates how understanding community
vulnerability and the reasons why communities are vulnerable to
disaster risks depends heavily on the progression of vulnerability. The
model thus makes it clear that addressing a sizable number of
socio-political and development-related issues should be the primary
focus for lowering risks in communities. This is consistent with what
we previously said about the various vulnerability domains. The
pressure through the progression of vulnerability needs to be
reversed. The Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction Year Revised:
2020 Page 8 of 10 As demonstrated by the pressure release model.
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The literature and common usage often mistakenly combine exposure
and vulnerability, which are distinct. Exposure is a necessary, but not
sufficient, determinant of risk. Vulnerability refers to the
characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset
that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.
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Have you learned so much from this module? What are the three
things that you learned today? What are the two things you found
interesting? 3 Things I learned Today
1. ____________________________________
2. ____________________________________
3.____________________________________
2 Things I Found Interesting
1. ____________________________________
2. ____________________________________
1 Question I have
1. _______________________________________
Risk Model Hazard Physical Exposure
Exposure Social Factor Environmental Factor
Vulnerability Economic Factor
