Does the Impact of Earthquake Hazards Depend Primarily on Human Factors?
Discuss the view that the impact of earthquake hazards depends primarily on human factors (40 marks).
It is impossible for anybody to argue that human factors do not have an effect on the impact caused by earthquake hazards; however the extent of the effect is debatable depending on the situation. This can depend on many different aspects, for instance the level of development in the relevant country, the standard of infrastructure, the magnitude and location of the quake and lastly what time the quake occurs. In order to properly assess whether the impact of earthquake hazards depends primarily on human factors, it is necessary to look at a range of case studies which will provide a balanced overview. For instance – looking at the LEDW – examples such as the Haiti earthquake in January 2010 as well as the earthquake in the Indian Ocean in December 2004 could suggest that the impact depends primarily on human factors as these countries are not fully developed and thus might have underdeveloped infrastructure and building regulations. Contrary to this, the MEDW with examples such as the Northridge earthquake in 1994 could provide a contrasting argument in terms of how human factors affect the impact. However, there are always multiple factors which the impact depends on, regardless of the development of the relevant country.
The impacts can be split into categories such as social, economic and environmental in order to gauge the range of impacts and whether they depended predominantly on human factors. For example, we can compare the social impacts of the Haitian earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale with the 1994 Northridge earthquake in L.A, measuring a similar 6.7. The amount of fatalities and injuries in Haiti was extreme, over 230,000 died and many more were injured. This impact could be argued to have been due to human factors as the capital, Port au Prince, was poorly built as well as this, the earthquake hit the most densely populated area of
It is impossible for anybody to argue that human factors do not have an effect on the impact caused by earthquake hazards; however the extent of the effect is debatable depending on the situation. This can depend on many different aspects, for instance the level of development in the relevant country, the standard of infrastructure, the magnitude and location of the quake and lastly what time the quake occurs. In order to properly assess whether the impact of earthquake hazards depends primarily on human factors, it is necessary to look at a range of case studies which will provide a balanced overview. For instance – looking at the LEDW – examples such as the Haiti earthquake in January 2010 as well as the earthquake in the Indian Ocean in December 2004 could suggest that the impact depends primarily on human factors as these countries are not fully developed and thus might have underdeveloped infrastructure and building regulations. Contrary to this, the MEDW with examples such as the Northridge earthquake in 1994 could provide a contrasting argument in terms of how human factors affect the impact. However, there are always multiple factors which the impact depends on, regardless of the development of the relevant country.
The impacts can be split into categories such as social, economic and environmental in order to gauge the range of impacts and whether they depended predominantly on human factors. For example, we can compare the social impacts of the Haitian earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale with the 1994 Northridge earthquake in L.A, measuring a similar 6.7. The amount of fatalities and injuries in Haiti was extreme, over 230,000 died and many more were injured. This impact could be argued to have been due to human factors as the capital, Port au Prince, was poorly built as well as this, the earthquake hit the most densely populated area of