GOPH 375 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Rock Cycle, Continental Crust
Document Summary
A natural disaster is a natural occurrence in which a large amount of energy is released in a short amount of time, and causes loss of life (human or otherwise) or damage to property/economic losses. Natural disasters are often triggered when society ignores hazardous conditions in nature. Deadliest natural hazards are hurricanes and earthquakes (table 1. 2: others: floods (cause landslides), volcanic eruptions (landslides) Measuring hazards: disaster frequency: number of occurrences in a given length of time, return period: length of time between similar events (inverse of frequency, magnitude: amount of energy fuelling a natural event. Figure 1. 1 graph: smaller energy releases all the time, bigger energy releases . Figure 1. 2: geological disasters: earthquakes, volcanoes, mass movements, weather disasters: heat waves, drought, wildfires flood, storms cause of most. Canadian natural disasters - drought: changing weather patterns may increase the frequency of natural disasters. More densely populated places have more fatalities in a natural disaster than less populated.
