Natural Hazards

A type of event, triggered by forces in nature, that has the potential to cause significant loss of life, damage to property, and other natural hazards. To be considered a “natural hazard” the event cannot be caused by human activity or negligence, i.e., a fire caused by a burning cigarette in an apartment building has the potential to cause multiple deaths, but it is not a natural hazard because the fire is the result of human carelessness and is preventable. On the other hand, a similar fire caused by a lightning strike would be considered the result of a natural hazard. 

Natural hazards are generally not preventable, and in some cases cannot even be predicted with any level of accuracy, a characteristic that makes preparation for and response to this class of hazards particularly difficult. If a natural hazard results in an event that causes significant loss of life and/or property damage, the event is termed a natural disaster. In the United States, relief from the damage resulting from natural hazards is addressed initially by local and state agencies, but if the consequences of the event are severe enough to warrant additional assistance, the governor of a state may request federal disaster relief by declaring a specific location or group of locations (usually cities or counties) “disaster areas” and requesting assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The financial losses and cost in lives of natural hazards can be enormous, with a single significant event resulting in billions of dollars of damage and thousands of deaths. Geographers have become increasingly interested in recent years in the study of natural hazards, especially in the locational analysis of the patterns associated with the occurrence of hazards, and in the spatial aspects of response to such events.