3 Hazard, Vulnerability and Risks

Dr. Rajnish Ranjan

Objectives

• To introduce the concept of hazard, vulnerability and risks
• To describe hazards and forms of hazards
• To reflect on the vulnerability, its forms and understand its implications in disaster management
• To develop a conceptual understanding of risks
• To introduce the concept of hazard, vulnerability and risks
• To describe hazards and forms of hazards
• To reflect on the vulnerability, its forms and understand its implications in disaster management
•  To develop a conceptual understanding of risks

   Rationale

This module introduces the concepts of hazard, vulnerability and risks. It explores and elaborates hazard, vulnerability and risk linkage. Finally, it demonstrates how anthropogenic elements and activities play a significant role in exacerbating the impacts of a hazardous event and creating risks.

Image Source – Imgarcade.com

   Unit 1 – Hazards

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 (Makoka & Kaplan, 2005). They are external factors that affect the society or elements at risk. Hazards have the potential to cause disasters. (UNISDR 2009).

Description –Every living being experience some form of threat to life, property or anything which holds value to them. The source of this threat is called risk. Hazards can be as extreme as nuclear meltdown to as simple as road accidents.

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). According to Etkin (2015), a departure from that thought happened post the Lisbon earthquake in 1755. This earthquake brought forth a scientific viewpoint to the idea of hazards and their origins due to the commonalities in the destroyed houses.

There has been a gradual emergence of the term hazard as threats to mankind. Alexander (2000) described hazards as extreme geophysical events capable of causing disasters. The interpretation of hazards by Cutter, Hewitt and the definition of UNISDR also portray hazards as threats to human well-being, property or environment. It is to be noted that the hazard is the threat of events but not the probability of its occurrence or the actual event.

Hazards are also analysed in the context of vulnerability. Many studies have identified how hazards manifest itself when it interacts with the vulnerability. Eminent researchers Quarantelli, Wisner, Cutter, Hewitt, Blaikie, Cannon, Davis, Chapman have argued in similar lines.

Context of Hazards

The concept of hazards and their manifestations are dependent on time and space. The impact of hazards among people also varies from person to place. For instance, young people might not consider crossing a busy road as a hazard, while for the elderly and the differently abled, it is a serious hazard. Similarly, for malnourished people, diarrhoea is a serious threat but for their healthy counterparts this may not be the case .

Considering natural disasters, an earthquake, which is a hazard, occurring in an uninhabited desert will be of little concern and consequence than an earthquake occurring in a densely populated city. The subjective position of the person also determines the lens through which the hazard is viewed. Thus, hazards are not always bad. On the contrary, certain hazards like floods are welcome to farmers since it brings silt in their land (as long as the flood does not cause damage, human or economic loss).

Typology of hazards – Hazards can be classified across many dimensions. The most commonly used classification method classifies hazards according to its origin.

The classification used by EM-DAT distinguishes hazards as

1. Natural
2. Anthropogenic

(Note – This classification is largely debated as anthropogenic elements always exist in the occurrence of a natural disasters. But for the sake of simplicity we shall follow this classification)

Natural disasters are further classified in the following categories:

Source – Guha-Sapir et.al. 2009

The definition of each of the sub groups is as follows:

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)

b) 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

    Example – Epidemic, Pest Infestation, Community Disease.

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  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

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.

However it is to be understood that a hazard does not necessarily arise from a single originating factor but having multiple sources of origin.

Hazards are also classified on the basis of their speed of onset as:

1. Slow Onset – Slow onset events provide response time, i.e. the time to raise warning and time required for preparedness and response. E.g. Drought, Heat waves

2. Fast Onset – These events give no response time, and affects instantaneously. e.g. Earthquake, Cloud Bursts etc.

    3. Medium onset – Though not well defined, but these can be considered as events which fall in between slow and fast onset. These provide a very short time window to generate warnings and prepare for the hazard. e.g. Cyclones, Floods. (although traditionally considered under fast onset hazards).

There is another classification scheme based on hazard frequency as-

1. Single time Event – Major events which occur once and does not follow a seasonal or temporal pattern. e.g. Earthquake

2.Chronic Event – Major events which follow a seasonal pattern or occur repeatedly after a certain interval of time. e.g. Floods, Cyclones etc.

Depending on the time of initiation of a hazard, it can be classified as primary, secondary or tertiary hazards. A classic example of this kind is Tsunami generated by Tohuku Earthquake in Japan, that caused Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 11, 2011. In this case, Earthquake was the primary hazard, which created the secondary hazards of Tsunami which further created the tertiary hazard of nuclear spillage.

Further, hazards are also classified into two categories based on the spatial characteristics-

1.Concentrated – The events which affect a significant number of populations located in a single location. e.g. Floods

2.Dispersed – are hazardous events affecting a significant number of populations spreading across the geographical locations. e.g. Heat waves

While discussing about hazards, it would be worthwhile to discuss about the characteristics of hazards as under –

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

    Unit 2– Vulnerability

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.

Vulnerability is the characteristic of a person or group and their situation that influences their capacity to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the impact of a natural hazard. (Wisner et.al, 2003) It is the reduced capacity of individual to cope with or recover from hazardous events (Wisner, Blaikie, Cannon, & Davis, 2003).

Alternatively, vulnerability exists with a  likelihood that some kind of crisis may occur that will damage one’s health, life or property and resources on which one’s health and life depends (Anderson, 1995). UNISDR defines vulnerability as the “characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard” . It is the increased susceptibility of people to be affected by disasters.

Combining the two ideas, we can define vulnerability as the characteristics of a person or groups of persons who are

a) susceptible to the impacts of a hazard, and

b) have reduced capacity to recover from the hazardous events

This introduces the idea of susceptibility and resilience. Vulnerability can be considered broadly as a function of susceptibility and resilience. Susceptibility is the fact of being exposed. Resilience is the capacity to adjust and recover when the external shocks strike. The following cases elaborate the concept –

A. The house of a person is situated in flood prone zone, which is not built to withstand flood. But the person has enough resources to rebuild the house once it gets damaged. He also has another house where he can relocate during flood. In this case the person is susceptible but resilient.

B. In the other case, If the person has no house to relocate or resources to rebuild house post flooding. But the house itself is built to withstand flood and not be affected much. In this case the person is not resilient but not susceptible to the hazard.

C. In the last case, let us consider the person does not have a flood proof house nor does he have alternate resources to rebuild or additional house to relocate during floods. In this case the person becomes vulnerable to the impact of the flood.

Susceptibility has physical connotations and is easier to assess. It can be considered as the proximity and exposure to the hazard. Resilience on the other hand is a complex concept consisting of multiple parameters like access to resources, capacities etc. and are harder to assess than susceptibility(WHO, 1998) .

 Vulnerability in the context of disasters

Vulnerability, derived from the word Vulnerare (Latin) meaning “to wound”, could be seen as an indicator of areas of greatest concern with respect to a system. It is the degree to which a system might react adversely to the occurrence of an event/ hazard.

Vulnerability is internal to the system and depends on the system’s inherent strength or rather the weaknesses. Birkman (2007) identifies vulnerability as the internal factor that affects the transformation of hazards into disasters. It determines a hazard impacts on the society or elements at the risk.

The manifestation of a hazard creates additional stressors for the vulnerable groups. It interacts with pre-existing vulnerabilities and creates multidimensional adversities. The lack of fall back mechanism or coping capacities (due to the weakness of the system) translate hazards into disasters. The PAR model and the ACCESS model better reflects the interaction of vulnerabilities and hazards.

Pre-existing vulnerabilities are often responsible for creating disasters. While disasters only add to the stress and creating further vulnerabilities in the affected population, It often results in the creation of cyclical nature of vulnerability, thus vulnerability acts as a cause and consequence of disasters.

UNISDR (2004) states that vulnerability is determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors or processes, which increase the susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazards. There are many aspects of vulnerability. Examples may include poor design and construction of buildings, inadequate protection of assets, limited official recognition of risks and preparedness measures, and disregard for wise environmental management. These largely fall in the category of physical and environmental factors.Determinants of vulnerability are also rooted in social relations and historically rooted patterns of discrimination, inequity in access to resources, and power. (Birkmann & Wisner, 2006) Societal dynamics and developmental trajectory also determines the vulnerability

The interactions of multiple vulnerability factors determine the individual’s position in the society and access to resources. These resources are economic, social and political in nature. These factors in turn determine the susceptibility and resilience of individuals. An example below illustrates the concept.

Example–In literature, the increased vulnerability of the socially marginalized groups in disaster context have been highlighted. Often the hamlets of these groups are located in particularly disaster prone areas and often they do not recover from the impacts of the disaster even after many years.

Generally, these groups are not allowed to socially mingle with higher caste groups. Even if they are allowed, often these individuals do not have the economic capability to afford doing so. Thus, they end up staying in disaster prone localities away from mainland. In the eventuality of disasters, these marginalized groups are the first to get affected.Once affected, these groups, due to their marginalized status, face unequal rights to property, exclusion from decision-making and difficulties in accessing information, health and financial services. The social tensions existing in a normal situation become prominent in the resource constrained environment. Thus, the recovery process of these groups take longer time, and often they fail to recover from the impacts of the hazards ending up in higher levels of vulnerability.

Hooke (1999) has opined that the poor communities living with fewer resources are unable to decrease their vulnerability. These individuals are also termed as “At risk population”. It “includes groups whose needs are not fully addressed by traditional service providers or those who feel they cannot comfortably or safely use the standard resources offered in disaster preparedness, relief, and recovery.

Source – jurisdynamic.blogpost.com

   Measuring vulnerability

Vulnerability as a concept has a strong theoretical foundation but the quantification of vulnerability is complex due to its subjectivity, relativity and dynamicity. We can observe that certain aspects of vulnerability are generic like poverty but others are dynamic. One such example is presented below:

Agencies operating in disaster scenarios identify women as also a “vulnerable group” (Wiest, Mocellin, & Motsisi, 1994; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2009). More than physical reasons, the root cause of women’s vulnerability to the impacts of disasters are lack of access to the resources such as income, education, health and social networks (Bradshaw, Fordham 2013). Women are affected more severely in environmental hazards due to their dependent status in most societies, and their limited control of resources.

The under mentioned three cases justifies this-

a. Within a household, variations in the level of vulnerability may be observed. This brings us to the idea of scale for measuring vulnerability. The scale can be global, regional, national, community, household or individual level. Perceiving individual level vulnerability is preferred, but considering time and resource constraint, it is not feasible. This raises the question of what should be the optimum level at which vulnerability should be measured.

b. In a matrilineal society women’s vulnerability due to dependent status does not hold. This is related to perception and cultural factors. (Motsisi, 1993)In Hurricane ‘Mitch’ it was observed that more men died as compared to women. Considering the gendered role of men as protector, not only because they were engaged in open-air activities but also because they did not take precautions. (Bradshaw, 2004)Hence vulnerability varies significantly across communities and over time. (UNISDR)

c. Vulnerability also varies due to the exposure of hazards. High casualty of women in disasters like earthquake was evident in Latur (1993) and Bhuj (2001) earthquake as women mostly stayed indoors. Similar scenarios were observed in 1991 Bangladesh cyclone (Ikeda, 1995) and post Tsunami in Sri Lanka where due to low physical agility, the casualty in women was more. While at the national level, accidental deaths in heat and sunstroke is more for men than women which can be attributed to the fact that men in India are involved in outdoor activities more than women for livelihood purposes. (NCRB, 2014)

These complexities hinder the development of universal standards for vulnerability measurement. It makes vulnerability assessment a subjective task which should be based on the contextual background.

It is, therefore, understood that beyond a certain threshold every individual or community is vulnerable.

Typology – Vulnerability can be broadly divided into the following categories,

1. Physical Vulnerability – This is the vulnerability of an individual or assets and infrastructures arising from physical components like settlements pattern, density , remoteness etc. . It may be further divided into-

a) Environmental – A person residing in a landslide prone zone

b) Anthropogenic – A person residing in an earthquake prone in seismically unsafe construction

2. Social Vulnerability – This type of vulnerability arise due to the social standing of the person. It can be further divided in

a)     Caste

b)     Social groups

c)     Communal relations

d)     Political affiliations

e)     Education

f)      Health

g)     Age

h)     Sex

i)      Others

3. Economic Vulnerability – Depends on the economic status of the individual. It is well established that the poor communities are more vulnerable to hazards as compared to rich communities, because they have fewer resources and limited capacity to prevent or cope up with the impacts of disasters/hazards.

4. Environmental vulnerability – This type of vulnerability is mostly dependent of natural resource depletion and resource degradation .

Unit 3– Risks

Definition – The concept of risk is used by multiple disciplines and has many interpretations. It is the measure of expected loss (human, properties , disruption of economic activity) due to a particular hazard. Therefore, Risk is the combined impact of hazard and vulnerability.

In the context of disaster management, the concept of ‘Risk’ has found many interpretations. It is defined as the probability that a hazard will materialize at a given space and time. (Modified from WHO, 1998) The term 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.(Coburn et.al., 1994)Provincial Emergency Program, developed by British Columiba combines the two concepts and defines risk as “A measure of probability and severity of adverse events to health, property, the environment or other things of value”.

Description – The word risk is derived from the word ‘riscare’ meaning “run into danger”.Risk is a probability that can be calculated while hazard is a potential that can be assessed. e.g Let us consider the risk of a tightrope walker walking on a highwire. The risk of the tightrope walker is the probability of falling off the wire and getting injured. The hazard here is falling off the wire. The tightrope walker is vulnerable as he is exposed to the hazard. Now let us consider that the highwire is only 1m above the ground. In that case the risk is much less than when the wire is 50m above the ground. Thus the risk is the probability of the tightrope walker falling and also the severity of the possible impacts. Let us consider there is crowd below the tightrope walker. The crowd might get injured when the walker falls. In this case both the tightrope walker and the crowd is vulnerable, but the vulnerability of the tightrope walker is much higher than the crowd due to his susceptibility to fall and get injured. If the tightrope walker uses a harness or a safety net then the risk of falling and getting injured is mitigated to a large extent. The presence of a medical emergency van at the site will not reduce the risk of fall but will reduce the risk of injury, which can also be considered as preparedness.

(Modified from Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability Analysis Toolkit, British Columbia, Provincial Emergency Program, 2003)

Risk Perception – People often react to their perception of risks instead of addressing the actual risks they face. The below figure shows how risk of different hazards is perceived by humans what is the actual risk of the hazards. The areas of negative bias, in spite of posing more threat, are often ignored and remain unaddressed due to the incorrect perception regarding them. On the other hand, in the areas of positive bias, risk is over estimated and actions to minimize the risks are undertaken. The psychometric paradigm of risk perception has a significant impact on risk management as it impacts people’s behaviour towards risks.

Source – Lichtenstein S., Slovic P., Fischhoff B., Layman M., Combs B, 1978 taken from Etkin, 2015

This also brings us to the idea of ‘Acceptable Risk’.“Degree of human and material loss that is perceived by the community or relevant authorities as tolerable in actions to minimize disaster risk” is termed as Acceptable Risk. (UN DHA, 1992)

Summary

1. 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.
2. Vulnerability is defined as the reduced capacity of individuals to cope with or recover from hazardous events as also susceptibility to be affected by hazards.
3. Risk is defined as the probability that a hazard will materialize at a given space and time.

References

• Alexander, D. (2000). Confronting Catastrophe: New Perspectives on Natural Disasters. Harpenden UK: Tera Publishing; New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from http://www.pacificdisaster.net/pdnadmin/data/original/JB_DM596b_UOM_2000_Confronti ng_catastrophe.pdf
• Anderson, W. (1995). “Where Every Prospect Pleases and Only Man Is Vile”: Laboratory Medicine as Colonial Discourse. Critical Inquiry, 18(3), 506-529. Retrieved from http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/448643
• Birkmann, J., & Wisner, B. (2005). Measuring the Un-Measurable: The Challenge of Vulnerability. Studies of the University: Research, Counsel, Education, 5(2006). Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/fsn/docs/Source_5_published.pdf
• Bradshaw, S., & Fordham, M. (2013). Women, Girls and Disasters: A review for DFID. Retrieved from http://gcrsp.eu/assets/uploads/women-girls-disasters.pdf
• Etkin, D. (2015, January 6). Disaster Theory. An Interdisciplinary Approach to Concepts and Causes, Retrieved from https://www.elsevier.com/books/disaster-theory/etkin/978-0-12-800227-8
• Hooke, W. (1999). Progress and Challenges in Reducing Losses From Natural Disasters. Ingleton, 280-283.
• Makoka, D., & Kaplan, M. (February 2008). Poverty and Vulnerability – An Interdisciplinary Approach. MPRA Paper No. 6964, posted 2. Retrieved from https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6964/1/poverty_and_vulnerability.pdf
• Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General Provincial Emergency Program. (2004). Hazard, Risk and Vulnerability Analysis Tool Kit. British Columbia. Retrieved from http://hrva.embc.gov.bc.ca/toolkit.pdf
• Reaching At-Risk Populations in an Emergency. (2007). Retrieved from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: https://emergency.cdc.gov/workbook/WHO. (1998). Hazard Classification. In WHO, Emergency Health Training Programme For Africa. Addis Ababa: Panafrican Emergency Training Centre. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/disasters/repo/5506.pdf
• Wiest, R. E., Mocellin, J. S., & Motsisi, D. T. (1994). The Needs of Women in Disasters and Emergenies. Winnipeg, Manitoba. Retrieved from https://www.gdnonline.org/resources/women-in-disaster-emergency.pdf
• Wisner, B., Blaikie, P., Cannon, T., & Davis, I. (2007). At Risk: Natural Hazards, People’s Vulnerability and Disasters. The Geogrpahical Journal, 173(2), 189–190.