What are Natural Hazards?

A Natural Hazard is a natural event of unusual magnitude that people don't expect and cannot control. Natural hazards threaten people's lives and their activities and can forever change their ways of living.

A natural hazard event can become a Natural Disaster when causes the destruction of people's property or their injury and/or death.

In people's lifetime, at least one natural hazard will likely have some impact on their life. In the year 2001, natural hazards killed over 25,000 people and caused almost 40 billion Euros in damage worldwide. Unfortunately, the cost of natural hazards is increasing dramatically.

Besides the obvious, direct impacts of natural hazards (such as an earthquake destroying a house), there are usually many indirect impacts. Although these impacts may be less obvious, they are often more costly and can add years on to the recovery time from a disaster. There is no such thing as a complete recovery - disasters can forever change our ways of living.

It is important to be aware of natural hazards because human activities can sometimes increase their frequency and their degree of their severity. For example, a building on top of an unstable slope adds weight to the slope and will increase the probability of the slope collapsing. Understanding when, where, why, and how natural hazards occur is the first step in minimizing their impacts on our lives.

How do scientists deal with the problem? Which are their main methods?

In order to understand better the factors that may cause catastrophic natural phenomena, scientists must address the problem in a multidisciplinary spherical way. The main methods for investigating the problem of natural hazards are:

1. Fundamental research: Scientists try to understand how extreme natural phenomena are being generated. In order to achieve this, they research the factors that may cause a natural disaster and they model the entire process of disaster generation. The purpose is to test the applicability of different mitigation solutions to actual situations. For example, intensive research is currently under way along the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) in Turkey, one of the most lethal active faults of the world. The objectives of scientist's research effort are focused on extending our knowledge on earthquake generation mechanisms along active faults. Their research also helps the understanding of the particular ("local") characteristics of NAFZ so as identifying seismic hazard for particular areas can become possible.
2. Applied research. Applied research incorporates the results of fundamental research to everyday life, in some way. Researchers try to find new ways and methods to help them transfer the scientific knowledge into products and services, which can mitigate the risk. For example, advances in slope failure mechanisms helped engineers to design larger structures, more resistant to slow or sudden earth movements.
3. Interaction between hazards. Most of the times, natural disasters are interconnected, i.e. one disaster may follow another. For example, a volcanic explosion may produce a significant earthquake or even a tsunami, which in turn may produce fire, flooding or slope failure. Scientists try to decipher these interactions and find ways to mitigate the effect of combined hazards.