To What Extent can Hazards be Controlled and Managed

To What Extent can Hazards be Controlled and Managed

Hazards are the bane of most LEDC's throughout the world retarding

development and causing colossal amounts of destruction and death,

killing over a hundred and forty people in one sea surge alone in 1991

in Bangladesh. This has meant that there has been a desperate response

to these natural phenomena by rich and poor governments alike to

reduce the affects of natural hazards, be it through controlling the

hazard or managing it. There are many different natural hazards that

people suffer from and many different ways by which governments and

people and control and manage them, however, I cannot speak here about

all of them in sufficient detail, so I have decided to concentrate, on

the most dangerous type of hazard, floods, which cause the most death

and destruction than any hazard, affecting 32% of all people affected

by natural hazards. Than I shall speak about how drought, which causes

amazing amounts of damage and affects 30% of all people affected by

hazards, but causes less than 3% of deaths, is managed since unlike

flooding the damage is more superficial, I shall contrast this to

Earthquakes, which cannot be controlled, however the amount of

management that takes place, can reduce its affect massively reducing

the amount of death to almost nil.

Floods, these occur all over the world and are due to many different,

factors, many of the worst affected areas being affected by multiple

factors, both eustatic and isostatic. This is well illustrated in the

UK where, we suffered a flash flood in 1953, due to intense low

pressure in the North Sea, strong winds, heavy rain + snow melt,...

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...lso in

Los Angeles they have very good transport links and have fleets of

helicopters who can bring aid and help almost immediately, meaning

that very few people will die in the aftermath, trapped in buildings

and due to disease.

So to conclude, there are many ways of controlling, and managing

hazards, and if the amount of resources put in is adequate it is

possible to reduce the affects of any hazard to almost nil. As in

America, even when there is no way, currently in our technological

grasp of controlling some hazards, death and destruction can still be

kept to a minimum through management. This can be see in poor

countries where mismanagement by governments who are trying to make

more money, taking a big risk and putting the interest of their people

on line, can make hazards worse, having the opposite effect.