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Natural Disaster Essay: How to Write, Topics, & Examples

What would you do if someone told you that a tsunami would wipe out your house tomorrow afternoon? You won’t believe them. It always seems that natural disasters happen in someone else’s life. But every year, millions of people worldwide suffer from various natural calamities. This article attempts to systemize the chaos of nature for you to write an impressive natural disaster essay. You will get acquainted with the seven types of disasters, get a long list of topics and examples of natural disaster essay in 200 words and 300 words.

• 🌪️ Natural Disaster: The Basics
• 💡 114 Essay Topics
• 📑 Outlining Your Essay
• 🌊 Essay Sample (200 Words)
• 🏜️ Essay Sample (300 Words)

🌪️ Natural Disaster Essay: What Is It About?

A natural disaster is a large-scale meteorological or geological event that can to cause loss of life or massive damage to people’s property. Floods and severe storms are the most reported acts of nature in the US, but other incidents also happen from time to time. That is why you can dedicate your essay on natural disasters to earthquakes, droughts, wildfires, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, or tornadoes.

💡 114 Natural Disasters Essay Topics

What could you write in a natural disaster essay? You can invent your own topic about various types of natural disasters, their causes, and aftermath, or their impact on human life and the economy. Depending on the discipline, you can also describe historic calamities that changed the direction of human civilization. Alternatively, choose one from our comprehensive list below.

• Why are the Great Plains of the central US ideal for tornado formation?
• Global Warming and Climate Change Legislation.
• Research the atmospheric parameters inside a tornado.
• Energy, Technology and Climate Change.
• Why are the boundaries of Tornado Alley in the US so debatable?
• The global climate change as a manmade disaster.
• Which actions should you never do when a tornado is nearby?
• Volunteers’ Role During Disasters.
• Suggest your opinion on the best action strategy in a hurricane.
• The Columbia Disaster and safety violations.
• What were the causes and effects of a flood?
• Analysis on Climate Change and Global Impact.
• Describe the most devastating wildfires in the US and find their common features.
• Earthquake Engineering Considerations and Methods.
• Brainstorm ideas to prevent wildfires.
• Global warming and the greenhouse effect.
• How can building dams cause earthquakes?
• Climate Change and Its Impact on Freshwater.
• Analyze the impact of droughts on tourism.
• Climate Change Effect on Coral Reef Communities.
• Describe the most extended droughts in human history.
• Marine and Coastal Climate Change in Australia.
• Write an essay on natural disasters and earthquakes in particular.
• Air pollution and mortality rates
• What are the distinctive features of droughts in third-world countries?
• Global Warming, Climate Change, and Society’s Impact on the Environment.
• Study the relationship between global warming and droughts.
• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder After a Hurricane.
• Evaluate the damage caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
• Social Media’s Role in Disaster Response.
• Classify the effects of natural disasters in an essay.
• Sustainability and Climate Change.
• Describe the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mt. Tambora, Indonesia.
• Hurricane Katrina: Overview, Impact, Response.
• Each new leap of civilization causes new responses of nature.
• Animal Exploitation. Animal Agriculture and Climate Change.
• Think of any positive effects a volcanic eruption may have.
• In Arizona, Collaboration Averts Water Disaster.
• Children are the poorest victims of any disaster.
• A Solution to Remedy Climate Change.
• Which ways of disaster risk reduction do you know?
• An Emergency Operations Center During Hurricane Harvey.
• Research the current problems in disaster management.
• Disaster Recovery Plan for Information Technology Organizations.
• Analyze ineffective disaster management in an essay about hurricane Katrina.
• Nurse Competencies and Scope of Practice in Disaster.
• What should a household have at home in the case of a disaster?
• Hurricane Katrina: The Powerful Natural Disaster.
• Describe the humanitarian disaster during the drought in Somalia.
• Technology in Disaster Preparedness.
• Can man-made disasters entail natural calamities?
• Disaster Management in Philadelphia.
• Review the criteria for disaster classification.
• Jeddah Floods and Adaptation Strategies in the City of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• Search for real examples of hybrid disasters.
• Natural Disasters Prevention: A Tabletop Exercise.
• Who is responsible for casualties after a natural disaster?
• The Sand Storms: Remote Sensing and Meteorological Variables.
• List the lessons we could learn from our past disaster experience.
• Fire Development, Growth, and Spreads.
• The ice storm and silver thaw: A gentle disaster.
• Fire Crisis Management in the UAE.
• Rockslides: A pressing issue for rural areas.
• 1d – 2d Flood Modeling Using PCSWMM.
• What are the psychological benefits of disaster preparedness?
• Structural Control and Origin of Volcanism in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
• When does a blizzard become a disaster?
• Extreme Weather Events + Geographies of Globalization.
• Research the causes of dust storms and name the affected areas.
• Strategies for Sustainable Integrated Oil Disaster Management in West Africa.
• Why did the San Francisco earthquake (1906) cause devastating fires?
• Causes of Climate Change.
• What could be done to help people who lost their homes in an earthquake?
• Book Review: Energy and Global Climate Change.
• Analyze the role of World Vision in humanitarian aid after disasters.
• Tangshan earthquake of 1976 showed that high population density is disastrous.
• The Role of Carbon Dioxide in Climate Change.
• Rock avalanche: Why water is the most powerful geological agent.
• Aspects of Climate Change.
• When do extreme weather conditions turn into a disaster?
• Climate Change: Reasons, Kyoto Protocol.
• Write an article on shelter-providing organizations for disaster victims.
• Establishing an IT Disaster Recovery Plan.
• Describe earthquake cycles in Haiti.
• Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture and Food.
• How can nature damage ecology in natural disasters?
• Climate Change. Problems. Effects.
• Disaster management should include psychological help to the survivors.
• Climate Change Causes: Position and Strategies.
• Suggest ways to prevent damage caused by debris flow.
• HAT 4: Disaster in Franklin Country.
• How did the lack of evacuation after the Bhola cyclone (1970) result in the massive death toll?
• The Effects of Climate Change.
• The most significant Yellow River flood: 2 million deaths in 1887.
• Resilience Building Against Natural Disasters in the Caribbean Islands.
• Sinkholes: A natural disaster or attraction for cavers and water-divers?
• Global Climate Change and Health.
• Describe the dynamics of landslides in California.
• Which early-warning systems to detect avalanches do you know?
• Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action.
• Pyroclastic flow: The deadliest volcanic hazard.
• Communication During Disaster Response.
• Describe the volcano eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the Herculaneum and Pompeii.
• Disaster Planning for Families.
• Disaster prevention measures: Investments that save millions of lives.
• Natural Disaster Management and Historical Prospective Study in the UAE.
• Research the PTSD in survivors of natural disasters.
• Are the latest disasters the nature’s fightback to humanity?
• Estimate the human impact on natural disasters.
• List the countries with the largest number of disasters and find their standard features.
• Everyday Communication on Climate Change.
• Insurance coverage against disasters: Our inevitable future.
• Emergency Planning Before and After Hurricane Katrina.
• One natural disaster could bring the world to its end.

Haven’t found a suitable topic in the list above? Use our essay topic generator to get more ideas.

📑 Natural Disaster Essay Outline

Outlines differ, depending on the assigned length and essay type. It is a reference sample. Feel free to modify it, extending some points and narrowing the others. Still, the overall structure should remain the same. We have chosen the “Causes of Earthquakes” essay topic for demonstrative purposes.

• Hook . There are millions of possible ways to start your essay, from a rhetorical question to any imaginable scenario. The point is to grab the reader’s attention, showing them that your writing is unique and creative. For example: We are always concerned with the consequences of a natural disaster. But what brought us into such a calamity in the first place?
• Concepts. Natural disasters can be studied in the framework of various disciplines. But in all cases, they are linked with geology, biology, chemistry, geography, and some other subjects with broad and complicated terminology. Explain the terms that could be elusive for your readers here. For example: For the purposes of this essay, an earthquake is a sudden displacement of the land surface.
• Background. How did you come to think of this problem? Why is it topical? The causes of earthquakes are numerous and often unrelated. To understand them as a system, we need a strict classification.
• Thesis statement . Clearly state the aim of your essay. This essay attempts to group the causes of earthquakes to determine which factors can be tackled by human forces.
• Transition sentence. It comes in the previous sentence (for paragraphs 2 and 3) and ensures smooth reading. E.g.: Tectonic movements are the most powerful causes of earthquakes, and we cannot influence them. But still, there is something we could do.
• Topic sentence . What will you explain in this paragraph? Human interference with nature can also cause earthquakes.
• Evidence. How can you confirm the topic sentence? Heavy clubbing of dam water can disturbance the crustal balance. Nuclear bombing causes shockwaves that penetrate the surface, changing the tectonic plates and their natural alignment. Mining can also cause earthquakes by removing extensive volumes of stone from under the ground.
• Warrant. Why does the reader need this information, and how does it relate to the thesis statement? Knowing these facts can help us change the old-fashioned approaches and lessen the ecological damage to our planet.
• Summary. Collect and summarize all your arguments here. Tectonic movements, volcano eruptions, and geological faults cause a significant part of earthquakes worldwide. But various man-made causes bring us to the same result.
• Rephrased thesis. We cannot stop the tectonic movements or hinder volcanic eruptions, but we can use natural resources with more care.

🌊 Natural Disaster Essay 200 Words

Below you will find a short natural disaster essay for 200 words. It explores the causes and effects of the tsunami in Japan in 2011.

Tsunami in Japan: Causes and Effects The proximity of the deadliest disasters is often unpredictable. As a result, the consequences of a tsunami can exceed any possible expectations. This essay looks for the decisive factors that caused the tsunami in Japan in 2011 and its results for the local population and other countries. The causes were out of human control and could not be predicted. The Pacific plate moved in the horizontal and vertical plane, advancing beneath the Eurasian Plate. It displaced the seawater above and entailed several destructive waves. The disaster had enormous consequences for the Japanese people and their economy. It killed almost 16,000 people, although the country had a sophisticated alarming system. Besides, the earthquake caused fires and explosions at oil factories. The cooling system of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant went out of service. Two people were lost, and many were injured. Nissan, like many other large corporations, had to suspend the operation of its four factories. The economic losses due to the catastrophe amounted to 300 billion dollars. But the disaster moved to other places. On 24 March 2011, the earthquake in the east of Myanmar claimed the lives of 60 people and destroyed 300 buildings. As we can see, everything is linked on our planet. Movements of the earth’ crust in any part of the world bring about earthquakes and tsunami in other countries. The series of waves in Japan was caused by the underwater earthquake and had horrible consequences.

🏜️ Natural Disaster Essay 300 Words

If your assignment is longer, you will have to provide your opinion in the essay. Or, you can make your argumentation more detailed. Below you can check our 300-word sample of a disaster essay.

The Economic Effects of the Dust Bowl Drought When someone says “a natural disaster,” we usually imagine an earthquake or a tsunami. Buildings are destroyed, and property is lost. But imagine a scenario of a devastating drought, which happened in the US in the 1930s. Its effect is less visible because it lies in the domain of the national economy. This essay reveals the economic consequences of the Dust Bowl drought. During the third decade of the XX century, strong winds raised choking dust in the southern states, from Texas to Nebraska. People and animals died as the crops failed in the area for several years in a row. The Dust Bowl lasted for almost a decade and was also called “the Dirty Thirties.” This drought intensified the impact of the Great Depression. Local farmers had to migrate to urban areas in search of better conditions and other sources of living. About 2.5 million people moved West from the worst-hit states, namely New Mexico, Texas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Kansas. But they found only discrimination, meager salaries, and inhuman working conditions. Many had to live in tents near irrigation ditches. They were called “Okies,” a disdainful name for migrants of any state. Regular rains returned to the southern states by the end of 1939, closing the drought. However, the economic aftermath persisted. The counties that suffered the most failed to recover the agricultural value of their land till the 1950s. Thus, the local population kept decreasing for twenty years. Although a drought does not ruin property, it can tangibly lower human life levels. The Dust Bowl threw people into a lose-lose situation. Their farms were unfit for gaining any profit, and the new places of living gave them no better opportunities. It took two decades to restore public wellbeing in the Southern States.

Researching the worst acts of nature can teach you to value what you have. We hope that this article has made your creative writing more manageable and pleasurable. You can write an essay of any length by simply following our outline. All you will need to do after that is make a cover page for it.

Please share your natural disaster essay ideas in the comments below.

❓ Natural Disaster Essay FAQ

How to write an essay about natural disaster.

Your approach should depend on the discipline. But in any case, you can discuss the types of disasters, their consequences, characteristics, and preconditions. The excellent idea is to select a past disastrous event and analyze it from the economic, social, or individual point of view.

What Is a Disaster Essay?

A disaster essay explores the stages of a natural or man-made calamity and seeks the possible ways to prevent similar emergencies in the future. An article on disaster management studies the correct and efficient activities to lower the casualties and property loss after a disaster.

What Is Disaster Preparedness Essay?

This type of writing analyzes the level of readiness of a region or municipality to an unexpected natural disaster. You can highlight the vulnerable groups of the population that will suffer the most. Or, you may invent measures that could reduce the disaster response and coping time. Such assignments teach you strategic thinking and a systematic approach to problem-solving.

How to Describe a Natural Disaster for an Essay?

You should specify that the event was unexpected and led to many deaths and property loss. The most critical things include the causes of the disaster, its progress and duration, and the negative consequences for the locals. You can also specify the negative effect on the economy and humanitarian condition of the area.

🔗 References

• Natural Disasters and Severe Weather | CDC
• Types of Disasters | SAMHSA
• Natural Disaster – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics
• Natural Disasters – National Geographic
• What Is Disaster Management: Prevention and Mitigation

The Influence of Climate Change on Extreme Environmental Events

Climate change affects global temperature and precipitation patterns. These effects, in turn, influence the intensity and, in some cases, the frequency of extreme environmental events, such as forest fires, hurricanes, heat waves, floods, droughts, and storms.

Climatology, Earth Science, Ecology

Boise National Forest Fire

Research shows human-caused climate change has worsened the risk of extreme weather events like the wildfires of the western United States, such as this forest fire in the Boise National Forest, Idaho.

Photograph by David R. Frazier Photolibrary, Inc./Science Source

Climate change caused by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities affects global temperature and precipitation . Records from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicate that the global average temperature has increased by at least 0.4 degrees Celsius (0.72 degrees Fahrenheit) since the 1970s, and that by 2100, it could increase to around 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures. While the global effects of climate change may seem too small to be noticed by people living around the world, we have already experienced the effects of climate change through severe weather events, including forest fires, hurricanes , droughts , heat waves, floods, and storms. Computer modelling of real data has shown that the frequency and intensity of these events are influenced by climate change. There is a distinction that needs to be made when it comes to the relationship between climate change and extreme environmental events: Climate change has not been proven to directly cause individual extreme environmental events, but it has been shown to make these events more destructive, and likely happen more frequently,than they normally would be. This drastic change is due to the increase in greenhouse gas emissions—primarily through the burning of fossil fuels for transportation, heat, and electricity—in the past 150 years. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, trap heat within Earth’s atmosphere, making the planet warmer. A warmer atmosphere affects the water cycle because warmer air can hold more water vapor . In fact, the air’s capacity to hold water vapor increases by 7 percent with an increase in temperature of 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit). This, along with warmer ocean temperatures, leads to heavier precipitation. Heavy precipitation can cause problems like flooding and landslides —where large amounts of soil or rock slide down a slope. An increase in intense precipitation comes with an increase in intense dry periods as well. Essentially, climate change causes wet places to become wetter and dry places to become drier by altering large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Warmer temperatures on land lead to reduced snowpack , earlier snowmelt , and evaporation of water from freshwater bodies. Extreme heat can lead to more frequent, severe, and prolonged heat waves and droughts and can make forest fires worse. On top of that, wildfires are harder to put out when air temperature is high and soil moisture is low. The number of heat waves, heavy rain events, and major hurricanes has increased in the United States. Hurricane Katrina of 2005 and Hurricane Sandy of 2012 are two of the most costly hurricanes in the history of the United States. The number of hurricanes that have occurred over recent years has not been linked to climate change, but their intensity has. The wind speed of tropical storms is increased by warmer sea-surface temperatures; by the end of the century, scientists predict maximum wind speed will increase by 2–11 percent. Coastal cities that are vulnerable to hurricanes will also be impacted by the sea level rise of around 0.3–1.2 meters (0.98–3.94 feet) in the next century, which will worsen coastal storms and flooding. Without preparing for climate change–induced environmental hazards , an increasing number of people worldwide will lose their homes and be forced into poverty. An average of around 22.5 million people have been displaced per year by climate or weather-related events since 2008. One way to prepare for extreme environmental events is by using current and past data and records to create computer models that show the frequency and intensity of these events. These models can also be used to predict when and where future events will occur and how destructive they will be. With this information, we can prepare for extreme weather events by warning people living in high-risk areas and sending disaster relief . The impact of climate change can also be observed in models by simulating the effects of different concentrations of greenhouse gases on variables, such as wind, rainfall, temperature, and air pressure. Past models used to prove that there is a relationship between climate change and extreme environmental events were not always reliable. This was due to a lack of data as well as flaws in climate models at the time. However, climate models have become more reliable, and a new field of science has developed to determine how climate change directly impacts extreme weather events: extreme event attribution. Since 2004, scientists have published more than 170 studies on the role of human-induced climate change on 190 extreme weather events. Research has found that climate change has increased the risk of wildfires in the western United States, extreme rainfall in China, and drought in South Africa. Continuous research and improvement in the field of extreme event attribution may help us figure out more precisely how climate change impacts extreme weather events–and how we might change this course.

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103 Natural Disaster Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Natural disasters are events that occur in nature and can cause significant destruction and loss of life. They can take many forms, including hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, and tsunamis. Writing an essay on natural disasters can be a daunting task, but with the right topic and approach, you can create a compelling and informative piece of writing. Here are 103 natural disaster essay topic ideas and examples to help you get started:

• The impact of climate change on natural disasters
• How do natural disasters affect the environment?
• The role of technology in predicting and mitigating natural disasters
• The psychological effects of natural disasters on survivors
• The economic impact of natural disasters on communities
• The social impact of natural disasters on vulnerable populations
• How do natural disasters affect wildlife and ecosystems?
• The role of government in responding to natural disasters
• The importance of disaster preparedness and planning
• The relationship between poverty and vulnerability to natural disasters
• The connection between deforestation and increased risk of natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on global food security
• The role of international aid in responding to natural disasters
• The long-term effects of natural disasters on communities
• The ethics of disaster response and recovery efforts
• The role of media in reporting on natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on mental health
• The connection between natural disasters and climate refugees
• The role of education in preparing communities for natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on infrastructure and development
• The relationship between natural disasters and disease outbreaks
• The connection between natural disasters and conflict
• The role of insurance in mitigating the financial impact of natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on agriculture and food production
• The connection between natural disasters and water scarcity
• The role of NGOs in responding to natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on tourism and the economy
• The relationship between natural disasters and climate justice
• The role of community resilience in recovering from natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on coastal communities
• The connection between natural disasters and mental health stigma
• The role of technology in tracking and monitoring natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on indigenous communities
• The relationship between natural disasters and climate change adaptation
• The role of gender in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on human rights
• The connection between natural disasters and urbanization
• The role of social media in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on education and schools
• The relationship between natural disasters and biodiversity loss
• The role of community-based organizations in responding to natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on clean water access
• The connection between natural disasters and food insecurity
• The role of preparedness drills in communities at risk of natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on children and families
• The relationship between natural disasters and displacement
• The role of volunteer groups in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on cultural heritage sites
• The connection between natural disasters and environmental racism
• The role of early warning systems in predicting natural disasters
• The impact of natural disasters on small businesses and local economies
• The relationship between natural disasters and social inequality
• The role of faith-based organizations in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on mental health access and services
• The connection between natural disasters and climate migration
• The role of community gardens in disaster recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to healthcare
• The relationship between natural disasters and food deserts
• The role of cultural competency in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on LGBTQ communities
• The connection between natural disasters and environmental justice
• The role of indigenous knowledge in disaster preparedness and response
• The impact of natural disasters on marginalized communities
• The relationship between natural disasters and gentrification
• The role of intersectionality in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on mental health disparities
• The connection between natural disasters and climate denial
• The role of community centers in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on immigrant communities
• The relationship between natural disasters and housing insecurity
• The role of community art projects in disaster recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to public transportation
• The connection between natural disasters and environmental activism
• The role of community health clinics in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to clean energy
• The relationship between natural disasters and environmental policy
• The role of community shelters in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to affordable housing
• The connection between natural disasters and community organizing
• The role of community colleges in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to mental health services
• The relationship between natural disasters and community gardens
• The impact of natural disasters on access to public libraries
• The connection between natural disasters and community resilience
• The role of community-based organizations in disaster response and recovery efforts
• The impact of natural disasters on access to affordable healthcare
• The relationship between natural disasters and community art projects
• The connection between natural disasters and environmental policy
• The relationship between natural disasters and community organizing
• The connection between natural disasters and community gardens
• The relationship between natural disasters and community resilience
• The connection between natural disasters and community art projects

These natural disaster essay topics cover a wide range of issues and perspectives, allowing you to explore different aspects of this important and timely subject. Whether you choose to focus on the environmental impact of natural disasters, the social and economic consequences, or the role of communities in responding and recovering, there are plenty of opportunities to explore and analyze in your essay. By selecting a topic that interests you and conducting thorough research, you can create a compelling and informative essay that sheds light on the complexities of natural disasters and their effects on our world.

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Cause & Effect Essay: Natural Disasters and Their Causes

Natural disasters happen all over the world, and they can be utterly devastating for people’s lives and the environments in which they live. Although natural disasters are caused by nature and there is nothing that we can do to prevent them happening, there are many different natural causes that lead to natural disasters, and being aware of these causes enables us to be better prepared when such disasters do arrive.

One common natural disaster is flooding, which occurs when a river bursts its banks and the water spills out onto the floodplain. This is far more likely to happen when there is a great deal of heavy rain, so during very wet periods, flood warnings are often put in place. There are other risk factors for flooding too: steep-sided channels cause fast surface run-off, while a lack of vegetation or woodland to both break the flow of water and drink the water means that there is little to slow the floodwater down. Drainage basins of impermeable rock also cause the water to run faster over the surface.

Earthquakes are another common natural disaster that can cause many fatalities. The movements of the plates in the earth’s crust cause them. These plates do not always move smoothly and can get stuck, causing a build-up of pressure. It is when this pressure is released that an earthquake occurs. In turn, an earthquake under the water can also cause a tsunami, as the quake causes great waves by pushing large volumes of water to the surface.

Tsunamis can also be caused by underwater volcanic eruptions. Volcanic eruptions are another natural disaster, and they are caused by magma escaping from inside the earth. An explosion takes place, releasing the magma from a confined space, which is why there are often also huge quantities of gas and dust released during a volcanic eruption. The magma travels up the inside of the volcano, and pours out over the surrounding area as lava.

One of the most common natural disasters, but also one of the most commonly forgotten, is wildfires. These take place in many different countries all over the world, particularly during the summer months, and can be caused by a range of different things. Some of the things that can start the wildfires can be totally natural, while others can be manmade, but the speed at which they spread is entirely down to nature. The two natural causes of wildfires are the sun’s heat and lightning strikes, while they can also be caused by campfires, smoking, fireworks and many other things. The reasons that they spread so quickly are prolonged hot, dry weather, where the vegetation dries out, which is why they often take place in woodland.

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Natural Disasters

How many people die from disasters, and how are these impacts changing over time?

By: Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado

Disasters – from earthquakes and storms to floods and droughts – kill approximately 40,000 to 50,000 people per year. This is the average over the last few decades.

While that’s a relatively small fraction of all deaths globally , disasters can have much larger impacts on specific populations. Single extreme events can kill tens to hundreds of thousands of people. In the 20th century, more than a million deaths per year were not uncommon.

Disasters have other large impacts, too. Millions of people are displaced – some left homeless – by them each year. And the economic costs of extreme events can be severe, and hard to recover from. This is particularly true in lower-income countries.

We are not defenceless against disasters: deaths from disasters have fallen significantly over the last century as a result of early warning systems, better infrastructure, more productive agriculture, and coordinated responses.

As climate change increases the risks of more extreme events, making societies even more resilient will be crucial to prevent our recent progress from reversing. To do so, we need to understand how disaster events are changing, who is most vulnerable, and what can be done to protect them.

On this page, you will find our complete collection of data, charts, and research on natural disasters and their costs.

Explore Data on Natural Disasters

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Research & Writing

The world has become more resilient to disasters, but investment is needed to save more lives

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Weather forecasts have become much more accurate; we now need to make them available to everyone

A four-day forecast today is as accurate as a one-day forecast 30 years ago.

Is the number of natural disasters increasing?

A deep dive into missing data and the limitations of disaster databases.

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Human activity the common link between disasters around the world

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Disasters such as cyclones, floods, and droughts are more connected than we might think, and human activity is the common thread, a UN report released on Wednesday reveals.

The study from the UN University, the academic and research arm of the UN, looks at 10 different disasters that occurred in 2020 and 2021, and finds that, even though they occurred in very different locations and do not initially appear to have much in common, they are, in fact, interconnected.

A consequence of human influence

The study builds on the ground-breaking Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) assessment released on 9 August, and based on improved data on historic heating, which showed that human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years. António Guterres, the UN Secretary-General described the IPCC assessment as a “code red for humanity”.

Over the 2020-2021 period covered by the UN University, several record-breaking disasters took place, including the COVID-19 pandemic, a cold wave which crippled the US state of Texas, wildfires which destroyed almost 5 million acres of Amazon rainforest, and 9 heavy storms in Viet Nam - in the span of only 7 weeks.

Arctic-Texas link

Whilst these disasters occurred thousands of miles apart, the study shows how they are related to one another, and can have consequences for people living in distant places.

An example of this is the recent heatwave in the Arctic and cold wave in Texas. In 2020, the Arctic experienced unusually high air temperatures, and the second-lowest amount of sea ice cover on record.

This warm air destabilized the polar vortex, a spinning mass of cold air above the North Pole, allowing colder air to move southward into North America, contributing to the sub-zero temperatures in Texas, during which the power grid froze up, and 210 people died.

COVID and the Cyclone

Another example of the connections between disasters included in the study and the pandemic, is Cyclone Amphan, which struck the border region of India and Bangladesh.

In an area where almost 50 per cent of the population is living under the poverty line, the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns left many people without any way to make a living, including migrant workers who were forced to return to their home areas and were housed in cyclone shelters while under quarantine.

When the region was hit by Cyclone Amphan, many people, concerned over social distancing, hygiene and privacy, avoided the shelters and decided to weather the storm in unsecure locations. In the aftermath, there was a spike in COVID-19 cases, compounding the 100 fatalities directly caused by Amphan, which also caused damage in excess of 13 billion USD and displaced 4.9 million people.

Root causes

The new report identifies three root causes that affected most of the events in the analysis: human-induced greenhouse gas emissions, insufficient disaster risk management, and undervaluing environmental costs and benefits in decision-making.

The first of these, human induced greenhouse gas emissions, is identified as one of the reasons why Texas experienced freezing temperatures, but these emissions also contribute to the formation of super cyclones such as Cyclone Amphan, on the other side of the world.

Insufficient disaster risk management, notes the study, was one of the reasons why Texas experienced such high losses of life and excessive infrastructure damage during the cold snap, and also contributed to the high losses caused by the Central Viet Nam floods.

The report also shows how the record rate of deforestation in the Amazon is linked to the high global demand for meat: this demand has led to an increase in the need for soy, which is used as animal feed for poultry. As a result, tracts of forest are being cut down.

“What we can learn from this report is that disasters we see happening around the world are much more interconnected than we may realize, and they are also connected to individual behaviour”, says one of the report’s authors, UNU scientist Jack O’Connor. “Our actions have consequences, for all of us,”

Solutions also linked

However, Mr. O’Connor is adamant that, just as the problems are interlinked, so are the solutions.

The report shows that cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions can positively affect the outcome of many different types of disasters, prevent a further increase in the frequency and severity of hazards, and protect biodiversity and ecosystems.

Interconnected disasters

Interconnected Disaster Risks 2020/2021, is released by the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security ( UNU-EHS ), which conducts research on risks and adaptation related to environmental hazards and global change.

The institute’s research promotes policies and programmes to reduce these risks, taking into account the interplay between environmental and societal factors.

Research areas include climate change adaptation by incorporating insurance-related approaches, environmentally-induced migration and social vulnerability, ecosystem-based solutions to adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and models and tools to analyse vulnerability and risks linked to natural hazards.

• disaster risk management

The Disaster Preparedness Plan Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Inherent necessities to resist natural disaster, assistance from outside organizations during a natural disaster, red cross-what can the community do to assist them.

A natural disaster is a natural phenomenon that is of an emergency nature and leads to disruption of the everyday activities of the population, death of people, and destruction of material values. To counter such a phenomenon, preparation, support, and evacuation strategies are desirable. In order to achieve success in the fight against a natural disaster, a plan is needed to serve as a savior of the situation.

Each natural disaster, accident and catastrophe has its characteristics, the nature of the damage, the volume and scale of destruction, the magnitude of disasters, and human losses. Knowledge of the causes and phenomena of natural disasters makes it possible, with early adoption of protection measures, with reasonable behavior of the population, to significantly reduce all types of losses (Esterwood & Saeed, 2020). According to this, the best solution for preparation is awareness of the nature of a catastrophe.

The first step is identifying water sources and purchases in a disaster used by the affected population. The next step is classifying barriers to populations accessing water, distance, access roads, security, financial constraints, and other possible solutions. During a natural disaster, water supply companies must enforce a protocol to supply water to affected populations (Valdovinos, 2021). Clean water is vital, especially for people in such a difficult situation.

People affected by a natural disaster may be left without a place to live. In case of a catastrophe, hotels can offer support by providing accommodation. For example, in Japan, in the event of a tsunami, hotels always provide accommodation for the victims (Nguyen et al., 2017). This approach might greatly help people who have lost their homes. Hotels can also provide accommodation for rescuers in case of a large radius of destruction and the need for many hands.

Mobile phones and the Internet are the primary means of communication in the current century. Communication is one of the vital factors in disaster response and warning. Eventually, these communication methods may not be available. However, telephone and Internet companies must notify people of impending disasters, reducing casualties often. Thus, the central role of such companies is the prevention of a disaster and the provision of communications during and after.

In addition to water, victims may also need provisions, so companies and individuals can help. Examples include Walmart and farmers, who can deliver food and household items for the victims, thereby providing direct support for them. Walmart has already provided this kind of support during Hurricane Katrina (Horwitz, 2020). If one touches on the commercial side of such an act, then it is worth noting that society will adequately appreciate such a generous and noble act. Last of these but not least, aspects of assistance include logistics. Support from trucking companies might be required in a situation of catastrophe. As mentioned above, the victims need assistance with water and provisions, and the companies that provide them will not always have enough logistical resources. Trucking companies can play a crucial role in assisting supply providers.

One of the ways how society can help the work of the Red Cross is by volunteering. Depending on the scale of the disaster, even such large organizations may need more hands to help everyone. In such situations, volunteers can help their compatriots in trouble on an unpaid basis. Even though ordinary, untrained people will help, sometimes, this may be enough to help the victims.

A disaster preparedness plan can seem varied due to the inability to predict its scale accurately. Despite this, it is better to have at least some plan than not to have one at all. The above aspects and their consideration will help minimize the incoming victims of disasters in such cases. Natural disasters are unpredictable, and it is almost impossible to nullify the number of losses.

Esterwood, E. & Saeed, S. A. (2020). Past epidemics, natural disasters, Covid19, and Mental Health: Learning from history as we deal with the present and prepare for the future . Psychiatric Quarterly, 91 (4), 1121–1133. Web.

Horwitz, S. (2020). The private sector’s contribution to natural disaster response. Bottom-up Responses to Crisis , 57–70. Web.

Nguyen, D. N., Imamura, F., & Iuchi, K. (2017). Public-private collaboration for Disaster Risk Management: A case study of hotels in Matsushima, Japan . Tourism Management, 61 , 129–140. Web.

Valdovinos, J. (2021). Transnational Corporations in Urban Water Governance: Public-Private Partnerships in Mexico and the US . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

• Analysis of Hotshot Trucking Company Create
• Intellectual Property of a Trucking Company
• Mexican Trucking and Free Trade Agreement
• Disaster Management: Programs and Approaches
• Hurricane Katrina: The US Emergency Management
• Genetic and Environmental Impact of the Chornobyl Disaster
• “What Will We Do When Coal Runs Out?” Documentary Analysis
• Approaching Disaster Security: Book Review
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 30). The Disaster Preparedness Plan. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-disaster-preparedness-plan/

"The Disaster Preparedness Plan." IvyPanda , 30 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/the-disaster-preparedness-plan/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Disaster Preparedness Plan'. 30 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Disaster Preparedness Plan." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-disaster-preparedness-plan/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Disaster Preparedness Plan." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-disaster-preparedness-plan/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Disaster Preparedness Plan." November 30, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-disaster-preparedness-plan/.

The Impacts of Natural Disasters: A Framework for Loss Estimation (1999)

Chapter: 4 conclusions and recommendations, 4 conclusions and recommendations.

This report has explained the gaps in our knowledge of natural disaster losses and why these gaps should be filled. Poor knowledge of the resulting economic losses hinders implementation of effective disaster mitigation policies and emergency response programs. Better loss estimates would benefit federal, state, and local governments, insurers, scientists and researchers, and private citizens (both as taxpayers and insurance purchasers).

It is clear that data on economic losses of natural disasters to the nation are incomplete and spread widely across the public and private sectors. Information on both direct and indirect costs is lacking. If data on uninsured direct losses are limited, our understanding of indirect losses is even more incomplete. These indirect losses are clearly difficult to identify and measure. However, in large disasters they may be significant and, within the immediately affected regions, potentially greater than the direct losses due to physical destruction, especially in large disasters.

Losses Versus Costs

In generating a national indicator of disaster damage, the focus should be upon the losses resulting from disasters, rather than costs. Losses encompass a broader set of damages than costs. Losses include direct physical destruction to property, infrastructure, and crops, plus indirect losses that are the consequence of disasters, such as temporary unemployment and lost business. Costs typically refer only to cash payouts from insurers and governments. The term "losses," as defined above, better portrays the true economic impacts of disasters.

Direct Losses: Data Collection, Reporting, and Agency and Organizational Roles

One step toward producing more complete loss estimates would be to assign one agency of the federal government to compile a comprehensive data base identifying the direct costs of natural disasters, as well as the individuals and groups who bear these costs. These data should be collected according to the framework described in Chapter 2 , for each natural disaster exceeding a given dollar loss threshold. The U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis appears to have the capabilities to compile such a data base, with considerable input and assistance from FEMA and other relevant federal agencies. Whatever agency is selected should be given sufficient resources to accomplish this assignment.

The recommended loss estimate data base would be compiled from many sources, including organizations such as Property Claims Services and the Institute for Business and Home Safety (which compile data on paid insurance claims) and other federal, state, and local agencies. The assistance of relevant professional associations, such as the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, should be enlisted to obtain other relevant data. A synthesis report containing data on disaster losses should be published periodically, preferably annually. One way the federal government might make sure it receives at least the state and local data is by amending the Stafford Act, requiring the data to be submitted as a condition for future federal disaster aid.

A related recommendation is for the federal Office of Management and Budget, with advice from FEMA, to develop annual, comprehensive estimates of the payouts for the direct losses (due directly physical damage) made by federal agencies. These data should be divided into at least four categories:

• compensation payments to individuals and businesses (including subsidies on loans to help cover disaster-related expenses);
• response costs;
• losses to government-owned infrastructure (including state and local costs that are reimbursed by the federal government); and,
• payouts from federal disaster insurance programs (with annual premiums shown separately).

These data should be assembled for some historic period in order to provide information of trends of disaster losses and payouts. Such an effort is critical if the federal government and policymakers are to better plan for future disaster-related expenditures, including mitigation programs and activities.

The largest current gap in direct loss data involves uninsured losses borne by businesses and individuals. These data might be obtained through post-event sampling (in large disasters) and extrapolating these losses from other data

bases. Data from loan applicants to the SBA's disaster relief program or data from insurers like PCS would indicate the deductibles paid by insured businesses and individuals.

Indirect Losses: Modeling the Losses and Constructing a Loss Data Base

Indirect losses in natural disasters stem from the consequences of physical damage (direct losses). Physical damages in disasters typically initiate events that alter economic flows. Businesses may be disrupted after a disaster due to damaged infrastructure (power, water, transportation, communications), and many workers may be temporarily unemployed. These indirect losses have not been studied or measured as closely as direct losses, largely because they are notoriously difficult to identify and accurately measure.

Due to the limited sources of indirect loss data, statistical models are often used to compile indirect loss estimates. Though these models may help address problems due to a lack of available data, they must become more reliable if they are to be used as guides in setting mitigation and other hazard-related policies.

If this is to occur, however, accurate, firsthand (primary) data on indirect losses must be available for model calibration and validation. The recommended data collection and coordination program should thus also include surveys for the collection of detailed primary data on indirect economic losses from recent disasters (again, sufficient resources for this effort must be budgeted). Once a sufficiently reliable data base of these indirect losses has been generated, the agency should continue to collect indirect loss data on large disasters—those with model estimates of greater than $10 billion in losses. While the indirect loss data base is being constructed, efforts toward more effective uses of secondary data (data generated for purposes other than indirect loss estimation, such as unemployment insurance payouts) should be continued. We thus recommend that an assessment of methods for estimating indirect losses with secondary data be conducted.

It is important to understand the timing of economic disruptions that trigger indirect losses in order to plan for efficient emergency responses and to assess the cost-effectiveness of alternate mitigation strategies. The committee recommends that a microsimulation model be developed to create a timeline of regional commercial and industrial closures. Other models that should be devised include a formal restoration model and a comprehensive indirect loss model.

Moving Toward Better Knowledge of Disaster Losses

The lack of accurate information on these losses is a barrier to more effective hazard mitigation. As a step toward improving mitigation programs, efforts at centralizing these data and compiling better loss estimates must be strengthened. The federal government and private sector should combine their knowledge and data in providing better estimates of direct losses. The federal government must mount and back a significant data collection and research effort if better estimates of losses due to disasters are to be compiled, especially indirect losses. With a strong commitment, this could be accomplished within the next ten years. Until relatively accurate estimates are available, the true economic losses in natural disasters will remain poorly understood and the benefits of disaster mitigation activities only imprecisely evaluated.

We in the United States have almost come to accept natural disasters as part of our nation's social fabric. News of property damage, economic and social disruption, and injuries follow earthquakes, fires, floods and hurricanes. Surprisingly, however, the total losses that follow these natural disasters are not consistently calculated. We have no formal system in either the public or private sector for compiling this information. The National Academies recommends what types of data should be assembled and tracked.

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Environmental Issues Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on environmental issues.

The environment plays a significant role to support life on earth. But there are some issues that are causing damages to life and the ecosystem of the earth. It is related to the not only environment but with everyone that lives on the planet. Besides, its main source is pollution , global warming, greenhouse gas , and many others. The everyday activities of human are constantly degrading the quality of the environment which ultimately results in the loss of survival condition from the earth.

Source of Environment Issue

There are hundreds of issue that causing damage to the environment. But in this, we are going to discuss the main causes of environmental issues because they are very dangerous to life and the ecosystem.

Pollution – It is one of the main causes of an environmental issue because it poisons the air , water , soil , and noise. As we know that in the past few decades the numbers of industries have rapidly increased. Moreover, these industries discharge their untreated waste into the water bodies, on soil, and in air. Most of these wastes contain harmful and poisonous materials that spread very easily because of the movement of water bodies and wind.

Greenhouse Gases – These are the gases which are responsible for the increase in the temperature of the earth surface. This gases directly relates to air pollution because of the pollution produced by the vehicle and factories which contains a toxic chemical that harms the life and environment of earth.

Climate Changes – Due to environmental issue the climate is changing rapidly and things like smog, acid rains are getting common. Also, the number of natural calamities is also increasing and almost every year there is flood, famine, drought , landslides, earthquakes, and many more calamities are increasing.

Above all, human being and their greed for more is the ultimate cause of all the environmental issue.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

How to Minimize Environment Issue?

Now we know the major issues which are causing damage to the environment. So, now we can discuss the ways by which we can save our environment. For doing so we have to take some measures that will help us in fighting environmental issues .

Moreover, these issues will not only save the environment but also save the life and ecosystem of the planet. Some of the ways of minimizing environmental threat are discussed below:

Reforestation – It will not only help in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem but also help in restoring the natural cycles that work with it. Also, it will help in recharge of groundwater, maintaining the monsoon cycle , decreasing the number of carbons from the air, and many more.

The 3 R’s principle – For contributing to the environment one should have to use the 3 R’s principle that is Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Moreover, it helps the environment in a lot of ways.

To conclude, we can say that humans are a major source of environmental issues. Likewise, our activities are the major reason that the level of harmful gases and pollutants have increased in the environment. But now the humans have taken this problem seriously and now working to eradicate it. Above all, if all humans contribute equally to the environment then this issue can be fight backed. The natural balance can once again be restored.

FAQs about Environmental Issue

Q.1 Name the major environmental issues. A.1 The major environmental issues are pollution, environmental degradation, resource depletion, and climate change. Besides, there are several other environmental issues that also need attention.

Q.2 What is the cause of environmental change? A.2 Human activities are the main cause of environmental change. Moreover, due to our activities, the amount of greenhouse gases has rapidly increased over the past few decades.

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Essay on Disaster Management

• Updated on  
• May 10, 2023

Disaster Management has been essentially included in the study curriculums of secondary education. Whether it is natural or man-made, disasters can wreak havoc on our surroundings and cost human lives as well. To familiarise students with efficiently preventing and ensuring the safety of living beings and our environment from unprecedented events, the study of Disaster Management has been included as an important part of the Geography class 10 syllabus. This blog aims to focus on imparting how you can draft a well-written essay on Disaster Management.

This Blog Includes:

What is disaster management, essay on disaster management: tips & tricks, sample format for essay on disaster management in 150 words, sample essay of disaster management (150 words), sample essay on disaster management (300 words) , sample essay on disaster management (500 words), essay on disaster management for class 9 onwards, essay on disaster management in india.

To begin with your essay on Disaster Management, the most important thing is to comprehend this concept as well as what it aims to facilitate. In simple terms, Disaster Management is termed as the management and utilisation of resources as well as responsibilities to tackle different emergencies, be it man-made disasters or natural ones. It concentrates on preparing human beings for a varied range of calamities and helping them respond in a better way as well as ensure recovery thus lessening their overall impact. 

Preparing for the Writing Section for Your English Exam? Then Check Out Message Writing and Letter Writing !

Before drafting your essay on Disaster Management, another thing you need to ensure is familiarising yourself with the structure of essay writing. To help you understand the do’s and don’ts, we have listed down some of the major things you need to keep in mind.

• Research thoroughly about your topic. For example, while writing an essay on Disaster Management, explore the recent happenings and mention them to provide the reader with a view into your understanding of this concept.
• Create important pointers while researching that you can further incorporate into your essay.
• Don’t mug up the definitions but comprehend them through examples.
• Use transitions between paragraphs to keep a coherent flow for the reader as a long paragraph might seem too lengthy and segregating your introduction and conclusion can provide a better structure.
• Quote important examples not only in your introduction but also in the following paragraphs where you detail the given topic.
• Revise and add finishing touches once you have completed the essay to locate any grammatical errors as well as other mistakes.

Now that you are aware of the key elements of writing an essay on Disaster Management, take a look at the format of essay writing first:

Introduction (30-40 words)

Begin with defining your topic explained in simple terms. For Disaster Management, You can make it more interesting by adding a question or a recent instance. The introduction should be understandable aiming to become more specific in the subsequent paragraphs.

Related Article: Geography for UPSC Preparation

Body of Content (80 words)

Also termed as the thesis statement , the content after the introduction should explain your given topic in detail. It should contain the maximum content out of the whole format because it needs to be detailed. For Disaster Management, you can delve deeper into its process, how it is carried out for different situations as well as prevention and protection.

Conclusion (30-40 words)

This section should mainly wrap up what you have described in the above paragraphs. For an essay on Disaster Management, you can focus on summing it up by writing its aim, types and purposes briefly.

Disaster can be simply termed as a sudden incident or happening which can be either natural or man-made and can potentially cause damage to the surroundings or loss of human life. To facilitate preparedness and better responsiveness to unforeseen events which can harm human beings and the environment, Disaster Management came into the picture.

Disaster Management aims to lessen the impact of natural and man-made calamities by designing and planning efficient ways to tackle them. It centrally comprises ensuring better control of the situation, its immediate evaluation, calling up required medical aids and transports, supplying drinking and food sources, among others and during this whole process, protecting the surroundings from more harm and keeping the lawfulness. The importance of Disaster Management has further increased in the contemporary scenario with the prevalent climate change and some of its latest examples include the unprecedented Australian wildfires.

Thus, the planet is getting bogged down by infinite technological devices, and their possible effects on the climate and the environment are inescapable. This has led to Disaster Management becoming the need of the hour as every country is aiming to become efficient and prepared to face both natural and man-made calamities.

Since the dawn of time, disasters, whether natural or man-made, have been a part of man’s evolution. Tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes, floods, accidents, plane crashes, forest fires, chemical disasters, and other natural disasters frequently strike without notice, leading to massive loss of life and property. Disaster management refers to the strategies and actions put in place to lessen and prevent the effects of a disaster.

The word “disaster management” refers to all aspects of catastrophe mitigation, including preventive and protective measures, preparedness, and relief activities. The disaster management process can be separated into two phases: pre-disaster planning and post-disaster recovery. This encompasses measures such as prevention, mitigation, and preparedness aimed at minimising human and property losses as a result of a possible danger.

The second category is activity post-disaster recovery in which response, rehabilitation, and reconstruction are all included. Search and rescue evacuation, meeting the victims’ basic needs, and rapid medical support from regional, national, and international authorities were all part of the response phase. The immediate purpose of the recovery phase is to restore some degree of normalcy to the afflicted areas. In resource-scarce countries, ex-ante risk mitigation investment in development planning is critical for decreasing disaster damage. It would be prudent to go from a risk-blind to a risk-informed investment decision.

We cannot prevent disasters, but we can reduce their severity and arm ourselves with knowledge so that too many lives are spared.

Introduction: 

The globe is plagued with disasters, some of which are terrible and others that are controllable. Natural calamities, for example, are sudden occurrences that wreak significant devastation to lives and property. Disasters can occur either naturally or are man-made. To repair the damage caused by these disasters, emergency management is required. Through a disaster management procedure, the damage is contained and the hazards of the event are controlled. The procedure is aimed at averting disasters and reducing the effects of those that are unavoidable. Floods, droughts, landslides, and earthquakes are all threats to India. The Indian government’s disaster management measures have vastly improved over time.

The Process of Disaster Management: 

The disaster management process is split into four stages. The first phase is mitigation, which involves reducing the likelihood of a disaster or its negative consequences. Public education on the nature of the calamity and how people may prepare to protect themselves, as well as structural construction projects, are among the actions. These projects are intended at reducing the number of people killed and property destroyed in the event of a disaster.

Preparedness is the second phase of disaster management, and it aims to improve government-led preparedness to deal with emergencies. The majority of the preparations are aimed toward life-saving activities. Plan writing, communication system development, public education, and drills are all part of the preparation process. The disaster management team implements measures to keep people alive and limit the number of people affected in the third phase, reaction. Transport, shelter, and food are provided to the afflicted population as part of the response. Repairs are being made, and temporary solutions, such as temporary housing for the impacted population, are being sought.

Recovery is the ultimate stage of disaster management. This normally happens after the tragedy has subsided and the harm has been done. During the recovery process, the team works to restore people’s livelihoods and infrastructure. Short-term or long-term recovery is possible. The goal is to return the affected population to a normal or better way of life. During public education, the importance of health safety is highlighted. The recovery phase allows catastrophe management to move forward with long-term solutions.

Disaster Management Challenges:

The management of disasters is a difficult task, and there are certain flaws to be found. Since the individual dangers and disasters in some countries are not well understood, the government is unable to deploy disaster management in the event of an unforeseen disaster. There’s also the issue of a country’s technical and framework capabilities being insufficient. Government support is required for disaster management frameworks. Due to the generally large population, the disaster management approach includes public education, but there is no psychological counselling for individuals. People are more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder and psychiatric illnesses.

Conclusion:

Disaster management is a very important activity that countries should embrace to prevent disasters and lessen the negative consequences of disasters. However, disaster management has limitations that restrict the techniques’ ability to be implemented successfully.

Disasters can cause chaos, mass death of humans and animals, and a rise in crime rates. Disasters are unfavourable events that cause widespread anxiety and terror. They also make it difficult for society to respond to its causes.

Natural or man-made disasters can emerge. In both circumstances, they have the potential to cause significant loss of life and property. A combination of man-made and natural disasters can occur in severe circumstances. For example, violent conflicts and food scarcity. As a result, disaster management is required to limit or prevent massive loss and damage.

Disaster management includes disaster avoidance, disaster awareness, and disaster planning. These ideas will be discussed further down.

Prevention of Disaster: 

Countries all across the world have taken precautions to prevent diseases or viruses from spreading. These initiatives include the funding of research into natural disaster aversion. Other sources of revenue include food distribution, healthcare services, and so on. In Africa and the Middle East, the latter is commonly used in economically challenged areas.

Improved scientific research has also made it feasible to predict potential natural disasters. For example, equipment to detect earthquakes and tsunamis has been developed. As a result, more people are concerned about the environment. In this sense, consciousness translates to a reduction in all forms of pollution in the environment.

Disaster Awareness :

Another strategy to minimise the excesses of widespread epidemics is to raise disaster awareness. Members of the public must be made aware of the importance of maintaining peace, de-escalating dangerous circumstances, and prioritising safety in the face of any possible tragedy.

The goal of disaster management is to reduce human death and suffering. The impact of disasters can be reduced if all of these factors are successfully managed. As a result, the necessity of disaster management cannot be emphasised.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) is the main agency charged with establishing rules and guidelines for disaster management in order to ensure prompt and effective disaster response. There is also a separate fund for mitigation called the “national disaster management fund” (NDMF). Functions performed by this agency are:

• Administration
• Formation of policies for disaster management
• Approval of the strategies made up for disaster mitigation
• Formation of revenue or funds for disaster mitigation
• Managing multiple programmes and disseminating instructions.

The disaster has had both direct and indirect repercussions on human life, both of which have been deadly devastating and detrimental. There have been fatalities as well as stock losses. Natural disasters are unavoidable; even if we have mechanisms in place to predict or forecast them, we cannot prevent them from occurring. While preparing plans for our disaster management, the best that can be done is to prevent behaviours that are detrimental to the environment and lead to environmental deterioration. When a disaster strikes, it causes widespread devastation and loss of life. In the event of a disaster such as earthquakes, floods, or other natural disasters, a large number of people are displaced, and a large number of people die as a result of the disaster. This is when the true emergency begins by providing first aid to the injured, as well as rescue and relief efforts for the victims. To limit the risk of human life, everyone must participate actively in disaster management. When a crisis happens, the appropriate disaster management team can seize over as soon as possible.

Also Read: Career in Ecology and Environment

The 4 phases of disaster management are Mitigation, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery. 

The 3 types of disasters are natural, man-made, and hybrid disasters.

On 23 December 2005, the Government of India enacted the Disaster Management Act

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Disaster Management Essay

Essay on Disaster Management

Disaster Management is the arrangement and management of the resources following a disaster, be it natural or man-made. There are so many organizations who are dealing with various types of disastrous situations from the humanitarian aspect. Some disasters are just the consequences of human hazards and some are caused by natural calamity. However, we can prevent them by taking the necessary emergency measures to save and preserve lives. As natural disasters cannot be predicted, they can take place anywhere at any time. 

Vedantu has provided an essay on Disaster management on this page. Students who have received an assignment to write an essay on Disaster Management or preparing an essay for examination can refer to this page to understand the pattern. Any student or parent can directly visit Vedantu site or download the app on the phone to get access to the study materials.  

Disaster Management’ is the simple term of management which embraces loads of disaster-related activities. Disaster occurs frequently in some parts of the world. Japan is the best example of it. Japanese people are annoyed on Tsunamis and earthquakes. The local scene is not much different from the global one. No one could forget the cyclone in Orissa, Earthquake in Gujarat or even the Mumbai Terrorist Attack.

Natural and man-made are the two categories of the disaster. Natural disasters are those which occurred due to sudden changes in the environment or topography causing uncountable human as well as economic loss. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods and cloudbursts are few of the natural disasters. Manual intentional made disasters are man-made disasters. For example, Gas leakage, terrorist attacks, fire, oil spills. Man-made disasters are the result of human intentions or might be because of workmanship or technical errors. The count of man-made and natural disasters is rising rapidly.

Here are a few things which will help us to deal with earthquakes. The significant information about Natural calamities is predicted easier and is being shared within the public by the central bureau. Furthermore, earthquake-resistant structures are constructed considering, ‘Precaution is Better Than Cure’. Reflexes are made so strong that cover of solid platforms such as a table and chair should be taken as soon as the danger is sensible while the cover of trees, electric poles or buildings is avoided as far as possible. Keep in touch with local news during heavy rainy days. Any flood is preceded with significant time. Making proper use of divine buffer time for safety is advisable. Strategically planning of water reservoirs, land uses, tree plantation, rainwater harvesting techniques help us increase immunity power to fight against the drought. 

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), American Red Cross, Federal Emergency Management Agency, International Association of Emergency Managers etc. are the best disaster management authorities. NDMA is a core body which obeys the law of Disaster Management. The reputed disaster managers are stuck in finding plans for rescuing from the loss of disaster. Moreover, to counteract the effect of disaster Rajya Sabha passed the ‘Disaster Management Act’ on 23 December 2005 which includes 11 chapters and 79 sections in it. Honourable Prime Minister of India Mr Narendra Modi holds the position of chairman of it. 

Youngsters should motivate themselves to learn and practice plenty of disaster management techniques and arrange the camps regarding it. Today, everyone is fighting against one of the breathtaking disasters named COVID-19 which is as big as fighting in world war. Avoiding the crowd, wearing the mask are the basic precautions suggested by the World Health Organization (WHO) during this period of fighting. This disease spreads mostly amongst the people who come in close contact with the infected one. So, it's suggested to keep a safe distance of around 3 meters within the others. This is being termed as ‘Social Distancing’. Nature is not cruel nor is it human. Just small management skills help us withstand before, in and after disasters. Uncountable suggestions and instructions in disaster management but few which apply every time must be followed.

Stages of Disaster Management

With proper implementation and structured action, we can prevent or lessen the impact of natural or man-made disasters. There are certain stages involving the cycle for disaster management plan which incorporates policies and emergency responses required for a prospectively complete recovery. The stages are –

The most preferred way to deal with disasters is to be proactive in their prevention rather than rushing later for their cure. This implies recognition of potential hazards and working towards infrastructure to mitigate their impact. This stage in the management cycle involves setting up permanent measures to minimize disaster risk.

Setting up an evacuation plan in a school, training the teachers to lead the students towards safe structures in the event of earthquake, tornado or fire, planning a strong base for high raised sky-scrapers to prepare for earthquakes and designing a city in such a manner that reduces the risk of flooding are some examples of measures takes for disaster prevention.

Mitigation is the first and the foremost attempt to save human lives during the time of disaster or their recovery from the aftermath. The measures which are taken can be both structural and non-structural.

Structural mitigation measures could include transforming the physical characteristics of a building or the surroundings to curb the effect, for example, clearing out of the trees around your house, ensuring that storms don’t knock down the trees and send them crashing into the house. Non-structural measures could include amending the building or locality codes to enhance safety and prevent disasters.

Preparedness

Preparedness is a process that involves a social community where the trained, or the head of the community, businesses and institutions demonstrate the plan of action which is supposed to be executed during the event of a disaster. It is an ongoing continuous process with anticipation of a calamity, which involves training, evaluating and taking corrective action with the highest level of alertness. Some examples of such prevention measures are fire drills, shooter drills and evacuation rehearsals.

The response is the action taken after the disaster has occurred to retrieve some life from it. It includes short-term and long-term responses. In ideal situations, the disaster-management leader will coordinate the use of resources in the restoration process and minimize the risk of further property damage.

During this stage, the area of the calamity is cleared if it poses any further threat to human as well as environmental life. For example, evacuation of the city of Chernobyl, Ukraine, is a responsive action against a disaster.

The fifth and last stage in the process of the disaster management plan is the recovery stage. This can sometimes take years or decades to happen. The larger mass of a city is also sometimes part of the recovery from a disaster. The greatest and the most infamous example of this is the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear attacks on Japan, it took the people of those cities years and decades to recover from that man-made calamity.

It took years of effort to stabilize the area and restore essential community or individual functions. The recovery stage prioritizes the basic essential needs of human survival like food, drinkable water, utilities, transportation and healthcare over less-essential services. Eventually, this stage is all about coordinating with individuals, communities and businesses to help each other to restore a normal or a new normal, as in the case of Covid-19.

How to Act as a Responsible Person During a Time of Disaster?

Some people have more experience than others with managing natural or man-made disasters and their prevention of them. Although this is that subject of life which should be studied and implemented by every business or community. As it is said rightly, “prevention is better than cure”, and any organization or an individual or a community can be hit by a disaster sooner or later, whether it's something as minor as a prolonged power cut or a life-threatening hurricane or an earthquake. Usually, the pandemics train us, as a social and political community, to deal with natural calamities and compel the organizations responsible for it, to build an infrastructure for its prevention.

To act responsibly and pro-actively during the event of a disaster, we have got to be prepared and equipped as a nation, individually and as a social community. To be well-educated and read with the aspects of disaster management is to be responsible for the handling of it.

FAQs on Disaster Management Essay

1. What is Disaster Management?

In simpler words, disaster management can be defined as the arrangement of resources and precautions to deal with all humanitarian aspects during an emergency. Disasters are the consequences of natural or human hazards. Earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes are some of the deadliest natural disasters to name a few. Examples of man-made disasters are bomb blast, radiations, transport accidents, terrorist attacks etc.

2. What is the Main Aim of Disaster Management?

The main aim of disaster management is prevention, rescue and recovery from the trauma, and development.

3. How to Write an Essay on Disaster Management?

Disaster management refers to the response to an emergency situation to make it as normal as possible. While writing an essay on Disaster Management, you can start with an introduction, then go on with the definition, the types of disaster management, a little in-depth explanation along with examples, and finish it off with a conclusion. 

4. Can I Get a Sample Essay on Disaster Management from Vedantu?

Yes, the essay mentioned on this page is about Disaster Management. This essay has been written by the experts of Vedantu keeping the understanding ability of the students of each class. 

5. What are the career opportunities in the field of Disaster management?

People looking for career opportunities in the field of disaster management have many pathways to approach it. Some examples of the jobs relating to this line of work are crisis-management leader, disaster-assistance specialist and emergency-planning coordinator. These are the roles which call for varying levels of responsibility in preparing a city or a company for catastrophic events. The job roles can be approached with earning a master’s degree in emergency and crisis management.

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“The untreated sewage channels are now between the tents": Gaza faces environmental disaster after eight months of crisis  

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Today on World Environment Day (June 5), ActionAid is highlighting the devastating impact that eight months of bombardment has had on the environment in Gaza and the long-term consequences of the destruction.      The Israeli military’s onslaught has not only been a disaster for the people of Gaza - killing more than 36,500 people and displacing more than 85% of the population. It has been a disaster for the environment too, leading to a major increase in pollution of the land, soil and water,  according to UNEP.  

An estimated  55% of structures in Gaza have been damaged by bombing, leaving the land covered in at least 37 million tonnes of debris, much of which is laced with unexploded bombs,  according to UNMAS. Chemicals and toxins from munitions have seeped into and contaminated the soil and groundwater. The Israeli military’s aerial bombardment has damaged 42.6% of cropland,  according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation, while  satellite imagery shows that almost half of Gaza’s trees have been razed.     This has severely hampered Gaza’s capacity to feed itself by growing vegetables, fruit and wheat at a time when the population is at risk of famine and more than 3,500 children under the age of five risk dying due to the shortage of food,  according to Gaza’s Government Media Office. In the past week alone, two children have  reportedly died as a result of malnutrition.      In some areas of Gaza, raw sewage is running between tents and mountains of rubbish are piling up in the streets because sewage and waste facilities are either damaged or unable to function due to the lack of fuel. This not only poses a serious immediate health risk to the population but will have serious long-term consequences for the environment. Amjad Al Shawa,  the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO), an umbrella organisation of 30 Palestinian NGOs and a partner of ActionAid Palestine, told ActionAid: ” The shortage of fuel affects the municipality services to collect [and treat] sewage and collect rubbish from the streets and between the shelters, which [are] now overcrowded with the new [internally displaced people].The untreated sewage channels [are now] between the tents, which is a serious concern for the people who are living in these plastic or cloth tents. It has serious implications on the health situation, and we have concerns regarding the contagious diseases.”     Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are having to endure these conditions in the midst of a scorching heatwave, without enough water or sufficient shelter from the sun. The lack of fuel means that vital desalination plants have shut down, UNRWA  says , forcing people to walk long distances in the heat to try and find water.     In the West Bank, too, Palestinians are being denied their right to a clean and safe environment.  A  recent report found that sewage and other hazardous wastewater from Israeli settlements was being dumped in Palestinian lands, damaging crops and leaving agricultural land unusable.      Meanwhile farmers are regularly being prevented from accessing their grazing land, crops and olive trees by restrictions of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities or settler violence.     Riham Jafari, Advocacy and Communications Coordinator at ActionAid Palestine said: 

“As well as killing tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, the Israeli military’s brutal onslaught of Gaza has had a devastating impact on the natural environment, severely disrupting its ecosystems and biodiversity. Even if this crisis ended tomorrow, its poisonous legacy will live on in the land, soil and water for many years to come.      “The destruction of agricultural land and greenhouses has made food production almost impossible in Gaza, and with only a trickle of aid entering the territory, people are starving, and children are dying of malnutrition. The current heatwave is making life even more intolerable for Gaza’s hundreds of thousands of displaced people who have nowhere to hide from the sun and no water to quench their thirst. The high temperatures will only increase the health risks posed by the raw sewage and piles of rubbish in the street.   

“This unbearable situation cannot go on any longer, there must be a permanent ceasefire now to prevent more lives being needlessly lost and so that aid on the vast scale required can be safely delivered to those in need.”   

Contact the ActionAid press office on  [email protected] or on 07753 973 486.   

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Home — Essay Samples — Philosophy — Determinism — Environmental Determinism: An Influential yet Controversial Theory

Environmental Determinism: an Influential Yet Controversial Theory

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Published: Jun 6, 2024

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UN official highlights how better preparation has shrunk disaster deaths despite worsening climate

FILE - A polling official enjoys a cooling spray of water under intense heat at a distribution venue for Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and other election material on the eve of the fifth phase of polling in the six-week-long national election in Lucknow, India, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh, File)

FILE - Residents rest in a gymnasium converted into a makeshift shelter for people whose homes were flooded by heavy rains, in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Wednesday, May 8, 2024. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo, File)

FILE - Workers fix a pole to restore electricity following heavy winds and incessant rains after landfall of cyclone Biparjoy at Mandvi in Kutch district of Western Indian state of Gujarat, Friday, June 16, 2023. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)

FILE - Residents ride past the Gremio Arena surrounded by flood waters from heavy rains, in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Thursday, May 9, 2024. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File)

FILE - People evacuated from a village near Jakhau board a bus to travel to a shelter in Kutch district, India, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki, File)

FILE - An abandoned canoe sits on the cracked ground amid a drought at the Sau reservoir, north of Barcelona, Spain, Monday, Jan. 22, 2024. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti, File)

FILE - A Brazilian soldier carries a dog after rescuing it from a flooded area after heavy rain in Canoas, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, Thursday, May 9, 2024. A top United Nations official says even though climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally. Thats because of better warning, planning and resilience. (AP Photo/Carlos Macedo, File)

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As climate change makes disasters such as cyclones, floods and droughts more intense, more frequent and striking more places, fewer people are dying from those catastrophes globally because of better warning, planning and resilience, a top United Nations official said.

The world hasn’t really noticed how the type of storms that once killed tens or hundreds of thousands of people now only claim handfuls of lives, new United Nations Assistant Secretary-General Kamal Kishore, who heads the UN’s office for disaster risk reduction told The Associated Press. But he said much more needs to be done to keep these disasters from pushing people into abject poverty.

“Fewer people are dying of disasters and if you look at that as a proportion of total population, it’s even fewer,” Kishore said in his first interview since taking office in mid-May. “We often take for granted the progress that we’ve made.”

“Twenty years ago there was no tsunami early warning system except for one small part of the world. Now the whole world is covered by a tsunami warning system” after the 2004 tsunami that killed about 230,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, Kishore said.

People are getting better warnings about tropical cyclones — also called hurricanes and typhoons — so now the chances of dying in a tropical cyclone in a place like the Philippines are about one-third of what they were 20 years ago, Kishore said.

As the former disaster chief for India, Kishore points to how his country has cut deaths thanks to better warnings and community preparedness such as hospitals being ready for a surge in births during a cyclone. In 1999, a supercyclone hit eastern India, killing almost 10,000 people. Then a nearly similar sized storm hit in 2013, but killed only a few dozen people. Last year, on Kishore’s watch, Cyclone Biparjoy killed fewer than 10 people.

The same goes for flood deaths, Kishore said.

The data backs up Kishore, said disaster epidemiologist Debarati Guha-Sapir of the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels, who created a global disaster database . Her database — which she acknowledges has missing pieces — shows that global deaths per storm event has dropped from about a ten-year average of 24 in 2008 to ten-year average of about 8 in 2021. Flood deaths per event have gone from ten-year averages of nearly 72 to about 31, her data indicates.

While there are fewer deaths globally from disasters, there are still pockets in the poorest of countries, especially in Africa, where deaths are worsening or at least staying the same, Guha-Sapir said. It’s much like public health’s efforts to eradicate measles, success in most places, but areas that can least cope are not improving, she said.

India and Bangladesh are poster nations for better dealing with disasters and preventing deaths, especially in cyclones, Guha-Sapir said. In 1970, a cyclone killed more than 300,000 people in Bangladesh in one of the 20th century’s greatest natural disasters and now “Bangladesh has done fantastic work in disaster risk reduction for years and years and years,” she said.

Pointing out wins is important, Guha-Sapir said: “Gloom and doom will never get us anywhere.”

While countries such as India and Bangladesh have created warning systems, strengthened buildings such as hospitals and know what to do to prepare for and then react to disasters, a lot of it is also just because these countries are getting richer and better educated and so they can handle disasters better and protect themselves, Guha-Sapir said. Poorer countries and people can’t.

“Fewer people are dying, but that’s not because climate change is not happening,’' Kishore said ”That is despite the climate change. And that is because we have invested in resilience, invested in early warning systems.’'

Kishore said climate change is making his job tougher, yet he said doesn’t feel like Sisyphus, the mythical man pushing a giant boulder up a hill.

“You are getting more intense hazards , more frequently and (in) new geographies,” Kishore said, saying places, like Brazil that used to not worry too much about floods now are getting devastated. The same goes for extreme heat , which he said used to be an issue for only certain countries, but now has gone global, pointing to nearly 60,000 heat wave deaths in Europe in 2022.

India, where temperatures have been flirting with 122 degrees (50 degrees Celsius) , has reduced heat deaths with specific regional plans, Kishore said.

“However with the new extreme temperatures we are seeing, every country needs to double its efforts to save lives,” he said. And that means looking at the built environment of cities, he added.

Cutting deaths is only part of the battle to reduce risk, Kishore said.

“We are doing a better job of saving lives but not of livelihoods,” Kishore said.

While fewer people are dying “you look at people who are losing their houses, people who are losing their businesses, a small farmer that is running a poultry farm,” Kishore said. When they get flooded or hit by a storm, they may survive but they’ve got nothing, no seeds, no fishing boats.

“On that we’re not doing as well as we should,” Kishore said. “We cannot accept that losses will occur. Of course they will occur, but they could be minimized by an order of magnitude.”

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year

Since last May, the average person experienced 26 more days of abnormal warmth than they would have without global warming, a new analysis found.

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By Raymond Zhong

Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday.

The past 12 months have been the planet’s hottest ever measured, and the burning of fossil fuels, which has added huge amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, is a major reason. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of atypical warmth since last May as a result of human-caused warming, the researchers’ analysis found.

Hypothetically, had we not heated the globe to its current state , the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer, the scientists estimated, using mathematical modeling of the global climate.

The precise difference varies place to place. In some countries, it is just two or three weeks, the researchers found. In others, including Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, the difference is upward of 120 days.

“That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people,” said one of the researchers who conducted the new analysis, Andrew Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central, a nonprofit research and news organization based in Princeton, N.J., adding, “It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.” In parts of South America and Africa, he said, it amounts to “120 days that just wouldn’t be there without climate change.”

Currently, the world’s climate is shifting toward the La Niña phase of the cyclical pattern known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This typically portends cooler temperatures on average. Even so, the recent heat could have reverberating effects on weather and storms in some places for months to come. Forecasters expect this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to be extraordinarily active, in part because the ocean waters where storms form have been off-the-charts warm.

The analysis issued Tuesday was a collaboration between several groups: Climate Central, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and World Weather Attribution, a scientific initiative that examines extreme weather episodes. The report’s authors considered a given day’s temperature to be abnormally high in a particular location if it exceeded 90 percent of the daily temperatures recorded there between 1991 and 2020.

The average American experienced 39 days of such temperatures as a result of climate change since last May, the report found. That’s 19 more days than in a hypothetical world without human-caused warming. In some states, including Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest and Washington and Oregon in the Northwest, the difference is 30 days or more, a full extra month.

The scientists also tallied up how many extreme heat waves the planet had experienced since last May. They defined these as episodes of unseasonable warmth across a large area, lasting three or more days, with significant loss of life or disruption to infrastructure and industry.

In total, the researchers identified 76 such episodes over the past year, affecting 90 countries, on every continent except Antarctica. There was the punishing hot spell in India last spring. There was the extreme heat that worsened wildfires and strained power grids in North America, Europe and East Asia last summer. And, already this year, there has been excessive warmth from Africa to the Middle East to Southeast Asia .

Raymond Zhong reports on climate and environmental issues for The Times. More about Raymond Zhong

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

News and Analysis

With the planet in the grips of its highest temperatures in more than 100,000 years, scientists with the U.N. weather agency have crunched the numbers and come to a stark conclusion: More record-hot years are all but inevitable .

Leaders in Alameda, Calif., voted to stop scientists from testing a cloud-brightening device that might one day be used to artificially cool the planet , overruling city staff members who had found the experiment posed no danger.

Human-caused warming has doubled the chances that southern Brazil will experience extreme, multiday downpours  like the ones that recently caused disastrous flooding there, a team of scientists said.

Adopting Orphaned Oil Wells:  Students, nonprofit groups and others are fund-raising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells  abandoned by industry.

Struggling N.Y.C. Neighborhoods:  New data projects are linking social issues with global warming. Here’s what that means for five communities in New York .

Biden Environmental Rules:  The Biden administration has rushed to finalize 10 major environmental regulations  to meet its self-imposed spring deadline.

F.A.Q.:  Have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers .

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Three years after EF3 tornado, Naperville devises new disaster relief program with nonprofit partner

Almost three years after an EF3 tornado ripped through Naperville’s Ranchview neighborhood, the city is using lessons learned in its wake to better tackle relief efforts should disaster strike again. A new program being created in partnership with local nonprofit Loaves & Fishes Community Services received unanimous approval from city leaders at Tuesday’s Naperville City Council meeting. It was spurred by the twister that struck the city in June 2021, leaving hundreds of homes uninhabitable or damaged, eight people injured and an untold number of trees destroyed. The disaster put...

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Reporting by Bernadette Christina; Editing by Tom Hogue

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HIV risk rises as climate disasters push African women to sell sex

As environmental crises hit livelihoods, more women and girls are forced into transactional sex.

In Nairobi's informal settlement of Kawangware, Kenyan vegetable seller Beverly confronts a grim reality — her one-room corrugated iron home and everything she owned has been destroyed in the worst floods in years.

Since March, torrential rains linked to climate change have inundated parts of East Africa, destroying homes and livelihoods and displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

With hunger knocking, the mother of two contemplates a dangerous exchange — sex for food.

"I know others who had to do it," 23-year-old Beverly, who did not want to provide her full name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"I know about risks like AIDS. But I have lost everything and I have to feed my children. I am praying to God to help me," she said.

Amid the turmoil of Africa's climate crisis, an unseen threat is unfolding where hunger is pushing women and girls into sexual exploitation and increasing the risk of HIV, health experts and aid workers warned.

The continent is on the frontline of the impacts of climate change. This year has seen floods in east Africa, heatwaves in the west and drought in the south.

Extreme climate, droughts may influence increase in HIV: study

As a hotter planet produces more intense and frequent weather-related events, communities teetering on the brink are being hit the hardest with their livelihoods, often based on farming, destroyed. Many are forced to migrate to survive.

This is not only exposing girls and women to exploitation in the form of transactional sex and sexual violence, but is also raising the risk of increased HIV infection.

Health experts are sounding the alarm, cautioning that this neglected crisis might reverse years of advancements in the fight against HIV, potentially undoing hard-won gains.

Research conducted by Frontline AIDS last year found if temperatures continued to rise as predicted, sub-Saharan Africa could see an additional 16-million cases of HIV by 2050.

"We were shocked with the results of modelling data from the study," said David Clark, head of programmes at Frontline AIDS, a global network of 60 charities tackling HIV.

"We are concerned the impacts of climate change could wipe away decades of progress on HIV."

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for 25.6-million of the 39-million people living with HIV globally

Sub-Saharan Africa has made great strides in tackling HIV since it was discovered more than 40 years ago. In east and southern Africa, for instance, new infections have dropped by 57% since 2010.

The region, however, remains the world's most affected, accounting for 25.6-million of the 39-million people living with virus globally, according to the UNAids programme.

Adolescent girls and young women make up more than 77% of new infections among people aged 15 to 24 years in sub-Saharan Africa, and are more than three times more likely to acquire HIV than their male peers.

"Many of these young women are highly vulnerable," said Pasquine Ogunsanya, executive director of the Kampala-based charity Alive Medical Services.

"They don't have economic power or a proper education so it's very difficult for them to negotiate for a condom," she said.

However, only about 42% of districts with high HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa have dedicated HIV prevention programmes for adolescent girls and young women, UNAids data shows.

At the same time, Africa is heating up at a faster rate than the rest of the planet and enduring more severe and frequent disasters such as droughts, floods heatwaves and storms.

BHEKISISA | Why climate change could make transactional sex more common

In 2022, the continent was hit by 80 extreme climate-related events. These included the Horn of Africa's worst drought in 40 years and wildfires in Algeria, and resulted in 5,000 deaths and more than $8.5bn (R161bn) in economic losses.

Aid workers said such disasters resulted in girls dropping out of school to find work, being forced into early marriage, or pushed into sexual exploitation where they have to exchange sex for money, food or water.

"During times of drought and food insecurity, we have seen women and girls resort to risky behaviours to put food on the table," said Zvidzai Maburutse, Oxfam's country director in Zimbabwe.

"This could be by visiting bars for transactional sex, or at boreholes where men will offer to help young women skip long queues or help them use the water pump in exchange for favours."

Women also faced the increased risk of sexual violence as they had to walk longer distances, often in the evening when it was cooler, to collect water or find food, said Maburutse, adding these situations were putting them at risk of HIV.

Researchers agreed.

A February study by Bristol University found droughts which led to food insecurity and poverty in Lesotho, Eswatini, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda were pushing rural women into transactional sex and raising their risk of HIV transmission.

WATCH | Bhekisisa: #COP28 – How will climate change affect HIV spread?

Researchers used survey data from more than 100,000 adults in the five countries, linked it with rain data to define drought areas, and used statistical models to determine if people exposed to drought were more likely to have acquired HIV.

Health experts said new infections during climate disasters could also arise when people living with HIV were unable to access their medication, often due to migration.

Without medication, people living with HIV can have a higher viral load which elevates the risk of transmitting the virus to others, they said.

Health experts and aid workers said HIV response in terms of prevention, testing and treatment during weather-related crises had been overlooked and did not feature in most countries' national disaster risk reduction plans.

Organisations focused on tackling HIV needed to partner with humanitarian organisations during disasters and focus on support such as cash transfers and provision of food and clean water to girls and women as a form of prevention.

Government and aid agencies should also look to introduce testing facilities and spread stockpiles of HIV medications to ensure migrant populations could access treatment during crises, they said.

Chalilwe Chungu, head of programmes for Catholic Relief Services in Zambia, said there needed to be increased support for food, nutrition and health services for vulnerable communities during disasters.

"Because of the level of investments and commitments required into tackling climate change issues, the links with HIV is a subject most people do not want to delve into," Chungu told Context.

"But there is enough evidence out there to help us extrapolate that climate change could reverse the gains we have made in HIV/Aids. We need to act now and protect those gains before it is too late." 

Thomson Reuters Foundation   

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