Fall 2018: Natural Hazards and Disasters
Natural Hazards and Disasters
Lab 1: Risk ConceptsRisk GovernanceIn this lab, we will review terms relevant for disaster risk assessments and consider the approach based on the frequency of extreme events. ProbabilityRisk 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 ConceptsAnswer three of the four questions.
Lab Reading ListWikipedia, 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. |