Fall 2018: Natural Hazards and Disasters

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Natural Hazards and Disasters

Courses: OEAS 250N (CRN 17463); class 3 credits; and OEAS 250N (CRN 17470), lab 1 credit
Course title: Natural Hazards and Disasters
Instructor: Dr. Hans-Peter Plag
Term: Fall 2018, August 28 - December 12, 2018
Time: Tuesdays, 4:20 PM - 7:00 PM (class)
  Tuesdays, 7:10 PM - 8:00 PM (lab)
Location: SRC 1000
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2:00-4:00 PM and on request.

Lab 1: Risk Concepts

Lab 1 Slides

Risk Governance

In this lab, we will review terms relevant for disaster risk assessments and consider the approach based on the frequency of extreme events.

Probability

Risk can be expressed as the product of hazard probability, vulnerability and value of exposed assets. The “Probability Density Function” (PDF) of a hazard (e.g., an earthquake or a volcano eruption) provides an information on the likelyhood of an event of a particular magnitude to occur in a given time interval. Knowing the PDF of hazards is crucial for thorough risk assessments.

For discrete events, the Poisson distribution is a means to estimate the probability that a certain hazard (e.g., a 100-year flood) will occur one or more times in a given time interval (e.g., a century).

Question Set 1: Basic Concepts

Answer three of the four questions.

  1. How do we define a hazard and a disaster in the context of the class, and what is the connection between a hazard and a disaster? Give an example of a hazard and the resulting disaster and describe the connection.
  2. In your own words, describe how the term risk is defined in different disciplines/fields, and what definition we are using in the class. Please, include references (others than what is on the class slides) for the definitions you provide.
  3. Discuss the probability density function (PDF) of a hazard and identify the main uncertainties in knowing the PDF for natural hazards.
  4. Explain the concept of a 100-year or 500-year event and use the Poisson Distribution to compute the probability that we have one or more of a 500-year in a century. Note that how you answer this question will let me know whether I need to invest more time with you to explain the distribution.

Lab Reading List

Wikipedia, n.d., Probability density function. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_density_function.

Wikipedia, n.d.,Probability distribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_distribution.

van Niekerk, D., 2011. Introduction to Disaster Risk Reduction. USAID, pdf.

Warfield, C., n.d., The Disaster Management Cycle. html.

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