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A natural disaster is the very harmful impact on a society or community after a natural hazard event. Some examples of natural hazard events include avalanches, droughts, earthquakes, floods, heat waves, landslides, tropical cyclones, volcanic activity and wildfires.[1] Additional natural hazards include blizzards, dust storms, firestorms, hails, ice storms, sinkholes, thunderstorms, tornadoes and tsunamis.[1] A natural disaster can cause loss of life or damage property. It typically causes economic damage. How bad the damage is depends on how well people are prepared for disasters and how strong the buildings, roads, and other structures are.[2] Scholars have been saying that the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned.[3] Instead, the simpler term disaster could be used. At the same time the type of hazard would be specified.[4][5][6] A disaster happens when a natural or human-made hazard impacts a vulnerable community. It results from the combination of the hazard and the exposure of a vulnerable society.
Nowadays it is hard to distinguish between natural and human-made disasters.[3][7][8] The term natural disaster was already challenged in 1976.[6] Human choices in architecture,[9] fire risk,[10][11] and resource management[12] can cause or worsen natural disasters. Climate change also affects how often disasters due to extreme weather hazards happen. These "climate hazards" are floods, heat waves, wildfires, tropical cyclones, and the like.[13]
Some things can make natural disasters worse. Examples are inadequate building norms, marginalization of people and poor choices on land use planning.[3] Many developing countries do not have proper disaster risk reduction systems.[14] This makes them more vulnerable to natural disasters than high income countries. An adverse event only becomes a disaster if it occurs in an area with a vulnerable population.[15][16]
A natural disaster is the highly harmful impact on a society or community following a natural hazard event. The term "disaster" itself is defined as follows: "Disasters are serious disruptions to the functioning of a community that exceed its capacity to cope using its own resources. Disasters can be caused by natural, man-made and technological hazards, as well as various factors that influence the exposure and vulnerability of a community."[17]
The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) explains the relationship between natural disasters and natural hazards as follows: "Natural hazards and natural disasters are related but are not the same. A natural hazard is the threat of an event that will likely have a negative impact. A natural disaster is the negative impact following an actual occurrence of natural hazard in the event that it significantly harms a community.[1] An example of the distinction between a natural hazard and a disaster is that an earthquake is the hazard which caused the 1906 San Francisco earthquake disaster.
A natural hazard[18] is a natural phenomenon that might have a negative effect on humans and other animals, or the environment. Natural hazard events can be classified into two broad categories: geophysical and biological.[19] Natural hazards can be provoked or affected by anthropogenic processes, e.g. land-use change, drainage and construction.[20]
There are 18 natural hazards included in the National Risk Index of FEMA: avalanche, coastal flooding, cold wave, drought, earthquake, hail, heat wave, tropical cyclone, ice storm, landslide, lightning, riverine flooding, strong wind, tornado, tsunami, volcanic activity, wildfire, winter weather.[1] In addition, there are also dust storms.
The term natural disaster has been called a misnomer already in 1976.[6] A disaster is a result of a natural hazard impacting a vulnerable community. But disasters can be avoided. Earthquakes, droughts, floods, storms, and other events lead to disasters because of human action and inaction. Poor land and policy planning and deregulation can create worse conditions. They often involve development activities that ignore or fail to reduce the disaster risks. Nature alone is blamed for disasters even when disasters result from failures in development. Disasters also result from failure of societies to prepare. Examples for such failures include inadequate building norms, marginalization of people, inequities, overexploitation of resources, extreme urban sprawl and climate change.[6]
Defining disasters as solely natural events has serious implications when it comes to understanding the causes of a disaster and the distribution of political and financial responsibility in disaster risk reduction, disaster management, compensation, insurance and disaster prevention.[21] Using natural to describe disasters misleads people to think the devastating results are inevitable, out of our control, and are simply part of a natural process. Hazards (earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics, drought etc.) are inevitable, but the impact they have on society is not.
Thus, the term natural disaster is unsuitable and should be abandoned in favor of the simpler term disaster, while also specifying the category (or type) of hazard.[4]
As of 2019, the countries with the highest share of disability-adjusted life years (DALY) lost due to natural disasters are Bahamas, Haiti, Zimbabwe and Armenia (probably mainly due to the Spitak Earthquake).[22][23] The Asia-Pacific region is the world's most disaster prone region.[24] A person in Asia-Pacific is five times more likely to be hit by a natural disaster than someone living in other regions.[25]
Between 1995 and 2015, the greatest number of natural disasters occurred in America, China and India.[26] In 2012, there were 905 natural disasters worldwide, 93% of which were weather-related disasters. Overall costs were US$170 billion and insured losses $70 billion. 2012 was a moderate year. 45% were meteorological (storms), 36% were hydrological (floods), 12% were climatological (heat waves, cold waves, droughts, wildfires) and 7% were geophysical events (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). Between 1980 and 2011 geophysical events accounted for 14% of all natural catastrophes.[27]
Developing countries often have ineffective communication systems as well as insufficient support for disaster risk reduction and emergency management.[14] This makes them more vulnerable to natural disasters than high income countries.
Natural hazards occur across different time scales as well as area scales. Tornadoes and flash floods are rapid onset events, meaning they occur with a short warning time and are short-lived. Slow onset events can also be very damaging, for example drought is a natural hazards that develops slowly, sometimes over years.[28]
A natural disaster may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental damage.
Globally, the total number of deaths from natural disasters has been reduced by 75% over the last 100 years, due to the increased development of countries, increased preparedness, better education, better methods, and aid from international organizations. Since the global population has grown over the same time period, the decrease in number of deaths per capita is larger, dropping to 6% of the original amount.[29]
The death rate from natural disasters is highest in developing countries due to the lower quality of building construction, infrastructure, and medical facilities.[29]
Global economic losses due to extreme weather, climate and water events are increasing. Costs have increased sevenfold from the 1970s to the 2010s.[30]: 16 Direct losses from disasters have averaged above US$330 billion annually between 2015 and 2021.[31]: 21 Socio-economic factors have contributed to this trend of increasing losses, such as population growth and increased wealth.[32] This shows that increased exposure is the most important driver of economic losses. However, part of these are also due to human-induced climate change.[33]: 1611 [34]
During emergencies such as natural disasters and armed conflicts more waste may be produced, while waste management is given low priority compared with other services. Existing waste management services and infrastructures can be disrupted, leaving communities with unmanaged waste and increased littering. Under these circumstances human health and the environment are often negatively impacted.[35]
Natural disasters (e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes) have the potential to generate a significant amount of waste within a short period. Waste management systems can be out of action or curtailed, often requiring considerable time and funding to restore. For example, the tsunami in Japan in 2011 produced huge amounts of debris: estimates of 5 million tonnes of waste were reported by the Japanese Ministry of the Environment. Some of this waste, mostly plastic and styrofoam washed up on the coasts of Canada and the United States in late 2011. Along the west coast of the United States, this increased the amount of litter by a factor of 10 and may have transported alien species. Storms are also important generators of plastic litter. A study by Lo et al. (2020) reported a 100% increase in the amount of microplastics on beaches surveyed following a typhoon in Hong Kong in 2018.[35]
A significant amount of plastic waste can be produced during disaster relief operations. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the generation of waste from relief operations was referred to as a "second disaster". The United States military reported that millions of water bottles and styrofoam food packages were distributed although there was no operational waste management system. Over 700,000 plastic tarpaulins and 100,000 tents were required for emergency shelters. The increase in plastic waste, combined with poor disposal practices, resulted in open drainage channels being blocked, increasing the risk of disease.[35]
Conflicts can result in large-scale displacement of communities. People living under these conditions are often provided with minimal waste management facilities. Burn pits are widely used to dispose of mixed wastes, including plastics. Air pollution can lead to respiratory and other illnesses. For example, Sahrawi refugees have been living in five camps near Tindouf, Algeria for nearly 45 years. As waste collection services are underfunded and there is no recycling facility, plastics have flooded the camps’ streets and surroundings. In contrast, the Azraq camp in Jordan for refugees from Syria has waste management services; of 20.7 tonnes of waste produced per day, 15% is recyclable.[35]
Because of the social, political and cultural context of many places throughout the world, women are often disproportionately affected by disaster.[36] In the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, more women died than men, partly due to the fact that fewer women knew how to swim.[36] During and after a natural disaster, women are at increased risk of being affected by gender based violence and are increasingly vulnerable to sexual violence. Disrupted police enforcement, lax regulations, and displacement all contribute to increased risk of gender based violence and sexual assault.[36]
In addition to LGBT people and immigrants, women are also disproportionately victimized by religion-based scapegoating for natural disasters: fanatical religious leaders or adherents may claim that a god or gods are angry with women's independent, freethinking behavior, such as dressing 'immodestly', having sex or abortions.[37] For example, Hindutva party Hindu Makkal Katchi and others blamed women's struggle for the right to enter the Sabarimala temple for the August 2018 Kerala floods, purportedly inflicted by the angry god Ayyappan.[38][39]
During and after natural disasters, routine health behaviors become interrupted. In addition, health care systems may have broken down as a result of the disaster, further reducing access to contraceptives.[36] Unprotected intercourse during this time can lead to increased rates of childbirth, unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).[36][40]
Pregnant women are one of the groups disproportionately affected by natural disasters. Inadequate nutrition, little access to clean water, lack of health-care services and psychological stress in the aftermath of the disaster can lead to a significant increase in maternal morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, shortage of healthcare resources during this time can convert even routine obstetric complications into emergencies.[41]
Once a vulnerable population has experienced a disaster, the community can take many years to repair and that repair period can lead to further vulnerability. The disastrous consequences of natural disaster also affect the mental health of affected communities, often leading to post-traumatic symptoms. These increased emotional experiences can be supported through collective processing, leading to resilience and increased community engagement.[42]
Disasters stress government capacity, as the government tries to conduct routine as well as emergency operations.[43] Some theorists of voting behavior propose that citizens update information about government effectiveness based on their response to disasters, which affects their vote choice in the next election.[44] Indeed, some evidence, based on data from the United States, reveals that incumbent parties can lose votes if citizens perceives them as responsible for a poor disaster response[45] or gain votes based on perceptions of well-executed relief work.[46] The latter study also finds, however, that voters do not reward incumbent parties for disaster preparedness, which may end up affecting government incentives to invest in such preparedness.[46]
Landslides, also known as landslips, or rockslides,[47][48][49] are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows.[50] Landslides occur in a variety of environments, characterized by either steep or gentle slope gradients, from mountain ranges to coastal cliffs or even underwater,[51] in which case they are called submarine landslides.
Gravity is the primary driving force for a landslide to occur, but there are other factors affecting slope stability that produce specific conditions that make a slope prone to failure. In many cases, the landslide is triggered by a specific event (such as a heavy rainfall, an earthquake, a slope cut to build a road, and many others), although this is not always identifiable.
Landslides are frequently made worse by human development (such as urban sprawl) and resource exploitation (such as mining and deforestation). Land degradation frequently leads to less stabilization of soil by vegetation.[52] Additionally, global warming caused by climate change and other human impact on the environment, can increase the frequency of natural events (such as extreme weather) which trigger landslides.[53] Landslide mitigation describes the policy and practices for reducing the risk of human impacts of landslides, reducing the risk of natural disaster.
An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a slope, such as a hill or mountain.[54] Avalanches can be triggered spontaneously, by factors such as increased precipitation or snowpack weakening, or by external means such as humans, other animals, and earthquakes. Primarily composed of flowing snow and air, large avalanches have the capability to capture and move ice, rocks, and trees.
Avalanches occur in two general forms, or combinations thereof:[55] slab avalanches made of tightly packed snow, triggered by a collapse of an underlying weak snow layer, and loose snow avalanches made of looser snow. After being set off, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass and volume as they capture more snow. If an avalanche moves fast enough, some of the snow may mix with the air, forming a powder snow avalanche.
There are many classification systems for the different forms of avalanches. Avalanches can be described by their size, destructive potential, initiation mechanism, composition, and dynamics.
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earth's surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking, and sometimes displacement of the ground. Earthquakes are caused by slippage within geological faults. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the seismic focus. The point directly above the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife – it is usually the secondary events that they trigger, such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, that cause death. Many of these can possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, early warning and planning.[citation needed]
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. When natural erosion, human mining or underground excavation makes the ground too weak to support the structures built on it, the ground can collapse and produce a sinkhole.
Coastal erosion is a physical process by which shorelines in coastal areas around the world shift and change, primarily in response to waves and currents that can be influenced by tides and storm surge.[56] Coastal erosion can result from long-term processes (see also beach evolution) as well as from episodic events such as tropical cyclones or other severe storm events. Coastal erosion is one of the most significant coastal hazards. It forms a threat to infrastructure, capital assets and property.