Environmental Disaster:
- The natural environment changes continuously; the process of changes can be gradual such as the evolution of landforms or the evolution of organisms; or it can be fast like a volcanic eruption, tsunami, or lightning.
- Changes may be limited to areas such as hailstorms, tornados, and landslides; or they may affect large areas such as ozone layer depletion, and epidemics.
- Some environmental changes are desirable such as season changes; some are undesirable changes such as earthquakes, and tsunamis.
- Disasters or a natural disasters are changes that are always disliked by humankind.
- Disaster is undesirable changes resulting from forces that are outside of human control, strike so quickly with little or no warning which causes serious disruption of life and property of humankind.
- Disaster is not always caused by natural actors, it is also caused by humans such as the Bhopal Gas tragedy, releasing of GHG, and environmental pollution. Unscientific land use cause landslides, flood, drought, etc.
The following are some natural disasters:
- Landslides
- Earthquake
- Tsunamis
- Flood
- Drought
- Epidemics
- Cyclone
- Cloudburst
- Cold wave
- Heatwave
Environmental Hazard or Natural Hazard:
Natural Hazard is elements of circumstances in the natural environment that have the potential to cause harm to people, property, and both.
Environmental Hazard vs Natural Disaster:
- Hazard and disaster are closely related to each other.
- Areas prone to natural hazards are vulnerable to disasters.
- People's activities in hazardous areas increase the intensity and quantity of disasters. The following are examples of some activities:
- Colonization of flood plains of most of the rivers
- Developing large cities and ports like Mumbai, and Chennai in the coastal region are prone to cyclones, hurricanes, and Tsunami disasters.
Try to solve the following questions:
- Landslide is a major problem in the Himalayan region. Discuss its causes and mitigation measures. ( 20 marks)( UPSC 2021 geography optional)
- Identify the Landslide-prone regions of India and suggest some measures to mitigate the disasters caused by these. (NCERT)
- Differentiate the causes of landslides in the Himalayan region and the Western Ghats.
- “The Himalayas are highly prone to landslides.” Discuss the causes and suggest suitable measures of mitigation.
- "Geomorphological changes are largely responsible for environmental hazards in the Himalayan region." Comment with relevant examples. (UPSC 2018, 200 words, 15 marks)
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