Describe how the HVA is used in disaster planning. 150 WORDS? for question two Please read the Docx file to answer the quest
I would like you to answer these two questions which are :
1. Describe how the HVA is used in disaster planning.
150 WORDS
for question two Please read the Docx file to answer the questions
2. Develop a HVA utilizing the hazards identified in Week 2 File .Be prepared to discuss the methods and rationale used to develop the HVA.
Flash flood in Saudi Arabia becomes one of the most repeated hazards that has occurred in the last few years. It causes several damages on many different location in Saudi such as Riyadh, Makkah, and Jeddah. Poor Infrastructure management is the main reason that increase the risk of flash flood in Saudi.
2- Human-related risks:
As we know, Saudi Arabia has encountered various terrorist attacks that caused lots of damages to society and the country. Identifying this type of hazard is vital to prevent any further attacks.
3-Motor Vehicle Crashes
Car accidents in Saudi Arabia are manifest and dangerous due to the high number of injuries and deaths.
4-Epidemic/ disease outbreak.
Disease outbreaks happen everywhere around the world. This is important to consider as one of the top hazards that affect Saudi Arabia because of mass gathering from around the world in both Ramadan and Haj seasons.
5-Dust storms
Dust storm is a serious natural hazard that Saudi cities face in the central and eastern region every year. When dust storms lands, it reduces visibility which can cause traffic accidents as well as affecting people suffering from lung diseases.
References:
Al-Bassam, A. M., Zaidi, F. K., & Hussein, M. T. (2014). Natural hazards in Saudi Arabia. Extreme Natural Events, Disaster Risks and Societal Implications, 243-251.
Alamri, Y. A. (2010). Emergency management in Saudi Arabia: Past, present and future. Un. Of Christchurch report, New Zealand, 21.
,
3 Risk and Vulnerability
Introduction Risk is an unavoidable part of life, affecting all people without exception, irrespective of geographic or
socioeconomic limits. Each choice we make as individuals and as a society involves specific, often
unknown, factors of risk, and full risk avoidance generally is impossible.
On the individual level, each person is primarily responsible for managing the risks he faces as he
sees fit. For some risks, management may be obligatory, as with automobile speed limits and seatbelt
usage. For other personal risks, such as those associated with many recreational sports, individuals are
free to decide the degree to which they will reduce their risk exposure, such as wearing a ski helmet or
other protective clothing. Similarly, the risk of disease affects humans as individuals, and as such is
generally managed by individuals. By employing risk reduction techniques for each life hazard, indivi-
duals effectively reduce their vulnerability to those hazard risks.
As a society or a nation, citizens collectively face risks from a range of large-scale hazards.
Although these hazards usually result in fewer total injuries and fatalities over the course of each year
than individually faced hazards, they are considered much more significant because they have the
potential to result in many deaths, injuries, or damages in a single event or series of events. In fact,
some of these hazards are so great that, if they occurred, they would result in such devastation that
the capacity of local response mechanisms would be overwhelmed. This, by definition, is a disaster.
For these large-scale hazards, many of which were identified in Chapter 2, vulnerability is most effec-
tively reduced by disaster management efforts collectively, as a society. For most of these hazards, it is
the government’s responsibility to manage, or at least guide the management of, hazard risk reduction
measures. And when these hazards do result in disaster, it is likewise the responsibility of governments
to respond to them and aid in the following recovery.
This text focuses on the management of international disasters, which are those events that over-
whelm an individual nation or region’s ability to respond, thereby requiring the assistance of the inter-
national body of response agencies. This chapter, therefore, focuses not upon individual, daily risks
and vulnerabilities, but on the risks and vulnerabilities that apply to the large-scale hazards like those
discussed in Chapter 2.
Two Components of Risk Chapter 1 defined risk as the interaction of a hazard’s consequences with its probability or likelihood.
This is its definition in virtually all documents associated with risk management. Clearly defining the
meaning of “risk” is important, because the term often carries markedly different meanings for
139
140 INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT
different people (Jardine & Hrudey, 1997). One of the simplest and most common definitions of risk,
preferred by many risk managers, is displayed by the equation stating that risk is the likelihood of an
event occurring multiplied by the consequence of that event, were it to occur: RISK ¼ LIKELIHOOD � CONSEQUENCE (Ansell & Wharton 1992).
Likelihood
“Likelihood” can be given as a probability or a frequency, whichever is appropriate for the analysis
under consideration. Variants of this definition appear in virtually all risk management documents.
“Frequency” refers to the number of times an event will occur within an established sample size over
a specific period of time. Quite literally, it tells how frequently an event occurs. For instance, the fre-
quency of auto accident deaths in the United States averages around 1 per 81 million miles driven
(Dubner & Levitt, 2006).
In contrast to frequency, “probability” refers to single-event scenarios. Its value is expressed as a
number between 0 and 1, with 0 signifying a zero chance of occurrence and 1 signifying certain occur-
rence. Using the auto accident example, in which the frequency of death is 1 per 81 million miles
driven, we can say that the probability of a random person in the United States dying in a car accident
equals 0.000001 if he was to drive 81 miles.
Disaster managers use this formula for risk to determine the likelihood and the consequences of
each hazard according to a standardized method of measurement. The identified hazard risks thus can
be compared to each other and ranked according to severity. (If risks were analyzed and described
using different methods and/or terms of reference, it would be very difficult to accurately compare
them later in the hazards risk management process.)
This ranking of risks, or “risk evaluation,” allows disaster managers to determine which treat-
ment (mitigation and preparedness) options are the most effective, most appropriate, and provide
the most benefit per unit of cost. Not all risks are equally serious and risk analysis can provide a
clearer idea of these levels of seriousness.
Without exception governments have a limited amount of funds available to manage the risks
they face. While the treatment of one hazard may be less expensive or more easily implemented than
the treatment of another, cost and ease alone may not be valid reasons to choose a treatment option.
Hazards that have great consequences (in terms of lives lost or injured or property damaged or
destroyed) and/or occur with great frequency pose the greatest overall threat. Considering the limited
funds, disaster managers generally should recommend first treating those risks that pose the greatest
threat. Fiscal realities often drive this analytic approach, resulting in situations in which certain
hazards in the community’s overall risk profile are mitigated, while others are not addressed at all.
The goal of risk analysis is to establish a standard and therefore comparable measurement of the
likelihood and consequence of every identified hazard. The many ways by which likelihoods and con-
sequences are determined are divided into two categories of analysis: quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative analysis uses mathematical and/or statistical data to derive numerical descriptions of risk.
Qualitative analysis uses defined terms (words) to describe and categorize the likelihood and conse-
quences of risk. Quantitative analysis gives a specific data point (e.g., dollars, probability, frequency,
or number of injuries/fatalities), while qualitative analysis allows each qualifier to represent a range
of possibilities. It is often cost and time prohibitive, and often not necessary, to find the exact quanti-
tative measures for the likelihood and consequence factors of risk. Qualitative measures, however, are
much easier to determine and require less time, money and, most important, expertise to conduct.
Chapter 3 • Risk and Vulnerability 141
For this reason, it is often the preferred measure of choice. The following section provides a general
explanation of how these two types of measurements apply to the likelihood and consequence compo-
nents of risk.
Quantitative Representation of Likelihood As previously stated, likelihood can be derived as either a frequency or a probability. A quantitative
system of measurement exists for each. For frequency, this number indicates the number of times a
hazard is expected to result in an actual event over a chosen time frame: 4 times per year, 1 time
per decade, 10 times a month, and so on. Probability measures the same data, but the outcome is
expressed as a measure between 0 and 1, or as a percentage between 0% and 100%, representing
the chance of occurrence. For example, a 50-year flood has a 1/50 chance of occurring in any given
year, or a probability of 2% or 0.02. An event that is expected to occur two times in the next 3 years
has a 0.66 probability each year, or a 66% chance of occurrence.
Qualitative Representation of Likelihood Likelihood can also be expressed using qualitative measurement, using words to describe the chance of
occurrence. Each word or phrase has a designated range of possibilities attached to it. For instance,
events could be described as follows:
l Certain: >99% chance of occurring in a given year (1 or more occurrences per year)
l Likely: 50–99% chance of occurring in a given year (1 occurrence every 1–2 years)
l Possible: 5–49% chance of occurring in a given year (1 occurrence every 2–20 years)
l Unlikely: 2–5% chance of occurring in a given year (1 occurrence every 20–50 years)
l Rare: 1–2% chance of occurring in a given year (1 occurrence every 50–100 years)
l Extremely rare: <1% chance of occurring in a given year (1 occurrence every 100 or more years)
Note that this is just one of a limitless range of qualitative terms and values that can be used to
describe the likelihood component of risk. As long as all hazards are compared using the same range of
qualitative values, the actual determination of likelihood ranges attached to each term does not neces-
sarily matter (see Exhibit 3–1).
Consequence
The consequence component of risk describes the effects of the risk on humans, built structures, and
the environment. There are generally three factors examined when determining the consequences of
a disaster:
1. Deaths/fatalities (human)
2. Injuries (human)
3. Damages (cost, reported in currency, generally U.S. dollars for international comparison)
Although attempts have been made to convert all three factors into monetary amounts to derive
a single number to quantify the consequences of a disaster, doing so can be controversial (How can one
place a value on life?) and complex (Is a young life worth more than an old life? By how much?).
EXHIBIT 3–1: QUALITATIVE MEASUREMENTS: THE CONSIDERATION OF RISK PERCEPTION
AND STANDARDIZATION
In brief, different people fear different hazards, for many different reasons. These differences in per-
ception can be based upon experience with previous instances of disasters, specific characteristics
of the hazard, or many other combinations of reasons. Even the word risk has different meanings
to different people, ranging from “danger” to “adventure.”
Members of assembled disaster management teams are likely to be from different parts of the
country or the world, and all have different perceptions of risk (regardless of whether they are able
to recognize these differences). Such differences can be subtle, but they make a major difference in
the risk analysis process.
Quantitative methods of assessing risk use exact measurements and are therefore not very
susceptible to the effects of risk perception. A 50% likelihood of occurrence is the same to every-
one, regardless of their convictions. Unfortunately, there rarely exists sufficient information to
make definitive calculations of a hazard’s likelihood and consequence.
The exact numeric form of measurement achieved through quantitative measurements is
incomparable. The value of qualitative assessments, however, lies in their ability to accommodate
for an absence of exact figures and in their ease of use.
Unfortunately, risk perception causes different people to view the terms used in qualitative
systems of measurement differently. For this reason, qualitative assessments of risk must be based
upon quantitative ranges of possibilities or clear definitions. For example, imagine a qualitative
system for measuring the consequences of earthquakes in a particular city, in terms of lives lost
and people injured. Now imagine that the disaster management team’s options are “None,”
“Minor,” “Moderate,” “Major,” or “Catastrophic.” One person on the team could consider 10
lives lost as minor. However, another team member considers the same number of fatalities as cat-
astrophic. It depends on the perception of risk that each has developed over time.
This confusion is significantly alleviated when detailed definitions are used to determine the
assignation of consequence measurements for each hazard. Imagine the same scenario, using the
following qualitative system of measurement (adapted from EMA, 2000):
1. None. No injuries or fatalities
2. Minor. Small number of injuries but no fatalities; first aid treatment required
3. Moderate. Medical treatment needed but no fatalities; some hospitalization
4. Major. Extensive injuries; significant hospitalization; fatalities
5. Catastrophic. Large number of severe injuries; extended and large numbers requiring
hospitalization; significant fatalities
This system of qualitative measurement, with defined terms, makes it more likely that people
of different backgrounds or beliefs would choose the same characterization for the same magnitude
of event. Were this system to include ranges of values, such as “1–20 fatalities” for “Major,” and
“over 20 fatalities” for “Catastrophic,” the confusion could be alleviated even more.
142 INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Chapter 3 • Risk and Vulnerability 143
Therefore, it is often most appropriate and convenient to maintain a distinction between these three
factors.
Categories of consequence can be further divided, and often are to better understand the total
sum of all disaster consequences. Two of the most common distinctions are direct and indirect losses,
and tangible and intangible losses.
Direct losses, as described by Keith Smith in his book Environmental Hazards, are “those
first order consequences which occur immediately after an event, such as the deaths and damage
caused by the throwing down of buildings in an earthquake” (Smith, 1992). Examples of direct
losses are:
l Fatalities
l Injuries (the prediction of injuries is often more valuable than the prediction of fatalities, because
the injured will require a commitment of medical and other resources for treatment [UNDP,
1994])
l Cost of repair or replacement of damaged or destroyed public and private structures (buildings,
schools, bridges, roads, etc.)
l Relocation costs/temporary housing
l Loss of business inventory/agriculture
l Loss of income/rental costs
l Community response costs
l Cleanup costs
Indirect losses (also as described by Smith, 1992) may emerge much later and may be much less
easy to attribute directly to the event. Examples of indirect losses include:
l Loss of income
l Input/output losses of businesses
l Reductions in business/personal spending (“ripple effects”)
l Loss of institutional knowledge
l Mental illness
l Bereavement
Tangible losses are those for which a dollar value can be assigned. Generally, only tangible losses
are included in the estimation of future events and the reporting of past events. Examples of tangible
losses include:
l Cost of building repair/replacement
l Response costs
l Loss of inventory
l Loss of income
Intangible losses are those that cannot be expressed in universally accepted financial terms. This
is the primary reason that human fatalities and human injuries are assessed as a separate category from
144 INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT
the cost measurement of consequence in disaster management. These losses are almost never included
in damage assessments or predictions. Examples of intangible losses include:
l Cultural losses
l Stress
l Mental illness
l Sentimental value
l Environmental losses (aesthetic value)
Although it is extremely rare for benefits to be included in the assessment of past disasters or the
prediction of future ones, it is undeniable that they can exist in the aftermath of disaster events. Like
losses, gains can be categorized as direct or indirect, tangible or intangible. Examples of tangible,
intangible, direct, and indirect gains include:
l Decreases in future hazard risk by preventing rebuilding in hazard-prone areas
l New technologies used in reconstruction that result in an increase in quality of services
l Removal of old/unused/hazardous buildings
l Jobs created in reconstruction
l Greater public recognition of hazard risk
l Local/state/federal funds for reconstruction or mitigation
l Environmental benefits (e.g., fertile soil from a volcano)
As with the likelihood component of risk, the consequences of risk can be described according to
quantitative or qualitative reporting methods. Quantitative representations of consequence vary
according to deaths/fatalities, injuries, and damages:
l Deaths/fatalities. The specific number of people who perished in a past event or who would be
expected to perish in a future event; for example, 55 people killed.
l Injuries. The specific number of people who were injured in a past event or who would be
expected to become injured in a future event. Can be expressed just as injuries, or divided into
mild and serious; for example, 530 people injured, 56 seriously.
l Damages. The assessed monetary amount of actual damages incurred in a past event or the
expected amount of damages expected to occur in a future event. Occasionally, this number
includes insured losses as well; for example, $2 billion in damages, $980 million in insured losses.
Qualitative Representation of Consequence As with the qualitative representation of likelihood, words or phrases can be used to describe the
effects of a past disaster or the anticipated effects of a future one. These measurements can be assigned
to deaths, injuries, or costs (the qualitative measurements of fatalities and injuries often are combined).
The following list is one example of a qualitative measurement system for injuries and deaths:
l Insignificant. No injuries or fatalities
l Minor. Small number of injuries but no fatalities; first aid treatment required
Chapter 3 • Risk and Vulnerability 145
l Moderate. Medical treatment needed but no fatalities; some hospitalization
l Major. Extensive injuries; significant hospitalization; fatalities
l Catastrophic. Large number of fatalities and severe injuries requiring hospitalization
Additional measures of consequence are possible, depending on the depth of analysis. These
additional measures tend to require a great amount of resources, and are often not reported or cannot
be derived from historical information. Examples include:
l Emergency operations. Can be measured as a ratio of responders to victims, examining the
number of people who will be able to participate in disaster response (can include both
official and unofficial responders) as a ratio of the number of people who will require
assistance. This ratio will differ significantly depending on the hazard. For example, following
a single tornado touchdown, there are usually many more responders than victims, but
following a hurricane, there are almost always many more victims than responders. This
measure could include the first responders from the community as well as the responders
from the surrounding communities with which mutual aid agreements have been made.
Emergency operations also can measure the mobilization costs and investment in preparedness
capabilities. It can be difficult to measure the stress and overwork of the first responders and
their inability to carry out regular operations (fire suppression, regular police work, regular
medical work).
l Social disruption (people made homeless/displaced). This can be a difficult measure because,
unlike injuries or fatalities, people do not always report their status to municipal authorities
(injuries and deaths are reported by the hospitals), and baseline figures do not always exist. It is
also difficult to measure how many of those who are injured or displaced have alternative
options for shelter or care. Measuring damage to community morale, social contacts and
cohesion, and psychological distress can be very difficult, if not impossible.
l Disruption to economy. This can be measured in terms of the number of working days lost or the
volume of production lost. The value of lost production is relatively easy to measure, while the
lost opportunities, lost competitiveness, and damage to reputation can be much more difficult.
l Environmental impact. This can be measured in terms of the clean-up costs and the costs to
repair and rehabilitate damaged areas. It is harder to measure in terms of the loss of aesthetics
and public enjoyment, the consequences of a poorer environment, newly introduced health risks,
and the risk of future disasters.
It does not matter what system is used for qualitative analysis, but the same qualitative analysis
system must be used for all hazards analyzed in order to compare risks. It may be necessary for disaster
managers to create a qualitative system of measurement tailored to the country or community where
they are working. Not all countries or communities are the same, and a small impact in one could be
catastrophic to another, so the measurement system should accommodate these differences. For exam-
ple, a town of 500 people would be severely affected by a disaster that caused 10 deaths, while a city
of 5 million may experience that number of deaths just from car accidents in a given week.
Another benefit of creating an individualized system of qualitative analysis is the incorporation
of the alternative measures of consequence (ratio of responders to victims, people made homeless/
displaced).
146 INTRODUCTION TO INTERNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT
Trends Both the likelihood and the consequences of certain hazard risks can change considerably over time.
Some hazards occur more or less frequently because of worldwide changes in climate patterns, while
others change in frequency because of measures taken to prevent them or human movements into their
path. These trends can be incremental or extreme and can occur suddenly or over centuries. Several
short-term trends may even be part of a larger, long-term change.
Changes in Disaster Frequency
Changes in disaster frequency can be the result of both an increase in actual occurrences of a hazard
and an increase in human activity where the hazard already exists. It is important to remember that
a disaster is not the occurrence of a hazard, but the consequences of a hazard occurring. A tornado
hitting an open field, for example, is not considered a disaster.
Changes in climate patterns, plate tectonics, or other natural systems can cause changes in the
frequency of particular natural hazards, regardless of whether the causes of the changes are natural
(El Niño) or man-made (global warming). Changes in frequency for technological or intentional
hazards can be the result of many factors, such as increased or decreased regulation of industry and
increases in international instability (terrorism).
Increases or decreases in human activity also can cause changes in disaster frequency. As popula-
tions move, they inevitably place themselves closer or farther from the range of effects from certain
hazards. For instance, if a community begins to develop industrial facilities within a floodplain that
was previously unoccupied, or in an upstream watershed where the resultant runoff increases flood
hazards downstream, it increases its risk to property from flooding.
Changes in Disaster Consequences
Similar to changes in disaster likelihoods, changes in consequences can be the result of changes in the
attributes of the actual hazard or changes in human activity that place people and structures at either
more or less risk.
Changes in the attributes of the hazard can occur as part of short- or long-term cycles, perma-
nent changes in the natural processes if the hazard is natural, or changes in the nature of the technol-
ogies or tactics in the case of technological and intentional hazards. The consequences of natural
hazards change only rarely independent of human activities. One example is El Niño events, with
intense flooding increasing in some regions of the world and drought affecting others, possibly for
years. Technological and intentional hazards, however, change in terms of the severity of their conse-
quences all the time. The high numbers of deaths and the structural damage associated with the bomb-
ings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon together display an increase in the consequences of terrorist attacks aimed
at Americans. A mutation of a certain viral or bacterial organism, resulting in a more deadly pathogen,
can cause a drastic increase in consequences, as occurred with HIV, the West Nile virus, mad cow
disease, and SARS.
Changes in human activities are probably the most significant cause of increases in the conse-
quences of disasters. These trends, unfortunately, are predominantly increasing. While the effects of
Chapter 3 • Risk and Vulnerability 147
disasters worldwide are great, their consequences are the most devastating in developing countries.
Smith (1992) lists six reasons for these changes:
1. Population growth. As populations rise, the number of people at risk increases. Population
growth can be regional or local, if caused by movements of populations. As urban populations
grow, population density increases, exposing more people to hazards than would have been
affected previously.
2. Land pressure. Many industrial practices cause ecological degradation, which in turn can
lead to an increase in the severity of hazards. Filling in wetlands can cause more severe
floods. Lack of available land can lead people to develop areas that are susceptible to,
for example, landslides, avalanches, floods, and erosion, or that are closer to industrial
facilities.
3. Economic growth. As more buildings, technology, infrastructure components, and other
structures are built, a community’s vulnerability to hazards increases. More developed
communities with valuable real estate have much more economic risk than communities in
which little development has taken place.
4. Technological innovation. Societies are becoming more dependent on technology. These systems,
however, are susceptible to the effects of natural, technological, and intentional hazards.
Technology ranges from communications (the Internet, cell phones, cable lines, satellites) to
transportation (larger planes, faster trains, larger ships, roads with greater capacity, raised
highways) to utilities (nuclear power plants, large hydroelectric dams) to any number of other
facilities and systems (high-rise buildings, life support systems).
5. Social expectations. With increases in technology and the advancement of science, people’s
expectations for public services, including availability of water, easy long-distance
transportation, constant electrical energy, and so forth, also increase. When these systems do not
function, the economic and social impacts can be immense.
6. Growing interdependence. Individuals, communities, and nations are increasing their
interdependence on each other. The SARS epidemic showed how a pathogen could quickly
impact dozens of countries on opposite sides of the world through international travel. In the
late 1990s, the collapse of many Asian economies sent ripple effects throughout all the world’s
economies. The September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States caused the global tourism
market to slump.
Disaster managers must investigate the validity of the trends they identify. It is common for a
trend to exist that is based on incomplete records. The technology used to detect many hazards has
improved, allowing for detection where it formerly was much more difficult or impossible. Therefore,
the lack of recorded instances of certain disasters could possibly be based on a lack of detection
methods.
Computing Likelihood and Co
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