With reference to a range of hazards, assess the success of prediction techniques in minimising their impacts on people
With reference to a range of hazards, assess the success of prediction techniques in minimising their impacts on people
A hazard is a natural process that directly affects man, or mans property; it often involves a high amount of danger and can be life threatening however, one way we can override the impacts of hazards is by predicting what damage will occur. To predict a hazard means to ‘make a statement about the future’. The problem with prediction is that it does not help to avert the hazard although it does assist to prepare an area and to help ensure that people, property and areas are safe. By effectively predicting a hazard, a management technique can be enforced to minimise the impact on people. Impacts can range from destruction of property right up to mass death and prediction is often vital in reducing the impact hazards have. Some hazards generally have more impacts on people than others, and Meteorological impacts are the most damaging. Other than drought, they have caused the largest amounts of deaths worldwide. The effects of meteorological hazards, including hurricanes cause widespread damage to property, communications and loss of life especially around the tropics where hurricanes mostly occur. Tectonic hazards also cause mass destruction along plate boundaries. Geomorphological hazards including landslides and avalanches have huge impacts in mountainous areas of land and snow-covered areas. Prediction can affect the impact the hazard has on people depending on the area of the hazard and the level of technological understanding there is in that area. For example, the earthquake in Cairo in 1992 reached 5.8 on the Richter scale, which is quite small compared to many yet still it caused dramatic devastation. This was all because Cairo was primitive technologically and was unable to predict when the earthquake would occur. Prediction is often determined by the economical status of a country.
As previously, mentioned, Meteorological hazards such as hurricanes have hugely devastating impacts. Hurricanes can only form at tropical latitudes where sea temperatures are above 27 degrees. Winds converge at the Inter Tropical Zone, here the warm moist air rises and as it does so, it cools and condenses to form water droplets. The warm moist air above the sea surface rushes into the space left by the rising pocket of air. Due to the rotation of the earth the Coriolis force is generated, which causes the hurricane to revolve, so adopting the typical spiral shape. Hurricanes can be predicted by a variety of different methods. Firstly, computer simulation can be used such as that used by scientists in Florida to predict hurricane Charley, Frances and Ivan. They did pretty well. Five days before three storms reached land, forecasters predicted within about 200 miles where they would hit. However, four days before landfall, some predictions were off by 700 miles. Computer- aided weather forecasting half a century ago was something of a joke, now it provides civil authorities information they need to make life and death decisions before a hurricane strikes. Now scientists hope to take the next step: predict how a storm's impact will affect rivers and streams prone to flooding. Satellites and weather balloons are also forms of hurricane prediction. In general computer simulation is quite affective in reducing impacts on humans however, prediction is still not 100% effective and $18-26 billion damage to Florida from Hurricane season proves that a lot more can be done.
