自然灾害（速成班地理 #27）--环境科学速成班EP5
Natural Hazards
We’ve visited a lot of wondrous places here on Crash Course Geography.So as we wrap up the physical geography half of our series, let’s play a little game-- if you could pick anywhere, where would you live?Not where would you visit, but where would you live.
Like we’ve learned on our virtual Earth tour, no matter where we are, we’re embedded
in a natural landscape.And that comes with opportunities -- and risks.Like if I was looking for my dream home in the US, I’d have lots of climate and topography choices because the US is big and spans multiple latitudes.But its western rim is on the edge of the tectonic plate collision zone called the Pacific Ring of Fire. Which means the Pacific coast sees lots of earthquakes and volcanoes and even tsunamis.And hurricanes periodically batter the East coast and Gulf of Mexico along with storm surges, coastal flooding, and wind damage. The middle’s not any safer -- lots of interior states are within what’s known as “Tornado Alley” And pretty much all states deal withdroughts, flooding, or blizzards.
Not to mention heat waves in India, wildfires
in Australia and Canada, and landslides in Japan. Plus so many other natural hazards, which are extreme natural events that pose a threat to human systems and people.So we have to wonder if there’s any place on Earth safe from disaster.I’m Alizé Carrère, and this is Crash Course Geography.
Natural events are all the ways our restless Earth is constantly reshaping and modifying itself. Like volcanoes erupting or tropical cyclones...cycloning.And so far in this course, we’ve studied why these natural events happen.Like how it’s really tectonic plates colliding and diverging that create the pattern of volcanoes along the Pacific Ring of Fire and many of those eruptions.But to be geo-literate people and fully understand what turns a natural event into a natural hazard, we have to remember that the worldworks as a set of physical, biological and social systems.
So we also need to study things like how humanssettle the land, and how patterns of affluence,economics, and politics contribute to disasters-- the human geography stuff.
In fact, every natural hazard has two main
components: the actual physical event or process and the potential impact on humans.
The physical events are driven by all the
physical processes we’ve learned about.
They could be meteorological events like heat
waves and cyclones, geological events like
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, and hydrological events like floods, droughts, mudslides.It’s the second component -- the impact on humans -- that changes a natural event into a natural hazard.Like severe flooding out where no one lives -- like in parts of Siberia -- is a much less severe threat to humans, so less of a hazard than a mild flood in a densely packed city -- like Jakarta.
But it’s also important to clarify what
a natural hazard is not.Something that’s human-caused, like pollution events like radioactive waste or oil spills,are considered human-made disasters and are normally excluded.And when the natural event actually happens and causes significant harm to humans, we call that a natural disaster.
As geographers, we want to compare different places and answer “why would this hazard happen here and not there?”
So in order to evaluate a hazard, geographers might look at several different dimensions.Like we might want to know how big the event was in some way.The height of a flood or the intensity of a windstorm measures the magnitude of the event.
Time is also an important dimension to a hazard in many ways.We might want to know about the frequency of occurrence, like if flooding is seasonal or rare and whether it occurs at a regular interval or is random, and how long it lasts or the duration of the event.
And a drought might be weeks or months in
the making whereas a hurricane or blizzard
can appear suddenly, so we can also look at
the speed of onset.Of course, as eographers we’re always thinking about space.So we can track the areal extent over the Earth’s surface -- like how big an area was affected by an earthquake -- and the degree of spatial concentration within that area -- like the most severely affected area would be at the epicenter where there were the strongest shocks. Evaluating hazards can also tell us how they’ve changed over time and show how the environmental and human components have become even more
tightly intertwined.As the human population has grown, we’ve tended to move into areas that are very attractive but also pose a high level of environmental danger -- like many cities are located in coastal areas.Or there could be other advantages, like rich volcanic soils that enable banana plantations.Our choices and social systems are increasing
the impact of natural events and making some people and places more vulnerable to certain types of hazards than others.
Where we can find opportunities or what we
can afford money wise has a big influence
on what we’re willing to accept risk wise.
Like in the American south, about half of
New Orleans currently sits below sea level
and people with low incomes live in the lowest-lying areas making them more vulnerable to flooding. And when in 2005 hurricane Katrina inundated 80% of the city and the flood waters rose up to 6.1 meters, these people were hit hardest by disaster preparedness and response problems.
But a poor response during a single disaster
isn’t the whole story.The tax base in New Orleans was eroded because of white flight in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s,when white people -- who were usually better-off financially or were able to participate in banking and real estate markets -- relocated en masse from the central city to the suburbs.The people left had altogether less money that could be taxed.
So over time there wasn’t enough investment
in the city’s drainage infrastructure.Because of more situations like Hurricane Katrina, many geographers now think that phrases
like natural disaster or natural hazard are
misleading.And there’s a push to define it as “a complex web of interactions among peoples,environments and technologies, characterized by multiple causes and consequences.”Which also means there’s a lot that affects how vulnerable people are in a place.Like it’s generally understood that wealth,education, a high degree of social organization,and advanced technology reduce vulnerability.As New Orleans rebuilt, a lot of energy and money was focused on strengthening levees,floodwalls, floodgates and pumping stations to reduce vulnerability to future hurricanes.But as geographers we want to know if that’s true everywhere.
The Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 along the northwest coast of what’s now the Indonesian island Sumatra was one of the most cataclysmic natural events of modern times.
Its tremendous force and scope killed more
than 230,000 people in 14 countries.
But in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a
group of islands off of the south east coast
of India, the Onge, a tribe of about 100 people,survived by taking shelter on higher ground deep in their forest to escape “the fury
of the wave”.The Onge have lived on the island of Little Andaman for 30,000 to 50,000 years.Their oral traditions had taught them about tsunamis and their folklore spoke of a “huge shaking of ground followed by a high wallof water.”They survived by heeding their traditions,though their settlements were completely destroyed.So as we’re assessing vulnerability and studying how to mitigate natural disasters,we have to consider all the ways different peoples relate to their environment and the value of different types of knowledge.Textbooks and classroom instruction are useful,but experience from keenly observing and living in the world is every bit as valuable.And this is why many geoliterate geographers and disaster preparedness teams spend a lot
of time ‘in the field’, talking with local
residents of their communities and learning
about this knowledge.Assessing how vulnerable a place is or was
helps us learn a lot about natural hazards,
but we also have to deal with the aftermath.
The idea of resilience is an important aspect
of disaster risk management because it shifts
the focus from vulnerability to recovery.
In disaster preparedness, resilience comes
in many different forms and is defined as
a system’s ability to absorb shocks and
disturbances -- but still maintain its current
functioning and bounce back from adverse events.
For instance, traditional town planning and
land use in the Kathmandu Valley has built
a strong sense of community which fosters
social resilience, which is when the social
bonds of a community help it recover faster.
In older historic towns in Nepal, traditional
open spaces like paved courtyards, chowks,
neighborhood squares, and larger open spaces at the edge of towns bring communities together during feasts, festivals and rituals.And during the Gorkha earthquake of 2015,the community used these spaces as evacuation sites and to provide refuge for households during and after the disaster.
And the architecture in these towns uses mixed timber and masonry construction and specifically represents the local culture and technology, but also functions as earthquake resilience.The buildings and houses are designed to absorb external forces and withstand displacement during an earthquake.But this style of architecture wouldn’t necessarily help the resilience of a city like San Francisco or Tokyo where skyscrapers and high rises are common.
Different cultures can have different attitudes
about risk, the role of government, and collective social responsibility too.
Usually what makes a place resilient locally
or regionally is really specific, so there’s
no universal solution.But resilience implies a way forward, and enhancing the resilience of cities and communities is a broad policy objective at international,national and sub-national levels.But no matter how prepared we are, some things can never be recovered after a natural disaster.Homes and businesses can be rebuilt and belongings
can be recovered, but we’ve also lost a
place and our sense of and attachment to places.So there’s a serious element to our “where would you live” game.Natural hazards constantly threatening our home is emotionally exhausting, but for some,
there’s no other choice.How people should prepare for and respond appropriately to disaster risks involves understanding
and forecasting a natural event and public
perception, risk communication, what capacity there is to implement different strategies,as well as ethics and compassion.
It takes an incredible amount of knowledge,
time, and effort so that in the recovery phase
community resilience is strengthened and its
capacity to cope with the impact of future
hazards grows.Likely no place is entirely safe from natural hazards -- especially as social and environmental challenges multiply.
But as we conclude the physical geography
half of our series we’re hopefully better
able to understand how rock structures, landforms,soils, vegetation, climate, and weather affect natural environments and our roles in them.When we think like physical geographers we’re better equipped to understand places spatially and appreciate all the connections between all the different parts of whatever landscape we’re in -- including the humans!The physical geographers of tomorrow are studying
humans as agents that sculpt and transform
the landscape, and are focusing on environmental change and global warming.
And I hope we can each take a piece of physical geography with us in our lives.
If I could live anywhere, I’d live somewhere
on the Pacific Ring of Fire where I could
see volcanoes creating new land.
Or near the floodplains of the Zambezi where
the river carves into the Earth.
Or right here in Miami, where tropical storms
both nourish and batter the landscape, and
where I can learn from and explore how people adapt and innovate in amazing ways.
And where I can share it all with you and make Crash Course, right here in my living room.
Tell me in comments where our time studying
physical geography has inspired you to dream about living, and I’ll see you next time
as we start exploring human geography and
the importance of the names and places we
call home.Many maps and borders represent modern geopolitical divisions that have often been decided without the consultation, permission, or recognition of the land's original inhabitants.Many geographical place names also don't reflect the Indigenous or Aboriginal peoples languages.So we at Crash Course want to acknowledge these peoples’ traditional and ongoing relationship with that land and all the physical and human
geographical elements of it.
We encourage you to learn about the history
of the place you call home through resources
like native-land.ca and by engaging with your
local Indigenous and Aboriginal nations through the websites and resources they provide.Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Geography which is filmed at the Team Sandoval Pierce Studio and was made with the help of all these nice people.
If you want to help keep all Crash Course
free for everyone, forever, you can join our
community on Patreon.
译文：
我们在地理速成班上参观了许多奇妙的地方。因此，当我们结束本系列的自然地理部分时，让我们玩一个小游戏——如果你可以选择任何地方，你会住在哪里？不是你会去哪里，而是你会住在哪里。就像我们在虚拟地球之旅中了解到的那样，无论我们身在何处，我们都融入了自然景观中。这伴随着机遇和风险。就像我在美国寻找梦想家园一样，我会有很多气候和地形选择，因为美国幅员辽阔，跨越多个纬度。但它的西缘位于被称为太平洋火环的构造板块碰撞带的边缘。这意味着太平洋沿岸经常发生地震、火山甚至海啸。飓风定期袭击东海岸和墨西哥湾，并带来风暴潮、沿海洪水和风灾。中部地区也并不安全——许多内陆州都位于所谓的“龙卷风巷”内，几乎所有州都面临着干旱、洪水或暴风雪。更不用说印度的热浪、澳大利亚和加拿大的山火以及日本的山体滑坡。再加上许多其他自然灾害，这些极端自然事件对人类系统和人类构成威胁。所以我们不得不想知道地球上是否有任何地方可以免受灾难。我是艾丽泽·卡雷尔，这是地理速成课。自然事件是我们不安的地球不断重塑和改变自身的所有方式。就像火山喷发或热带气旋……气旋。到目前为止，在本课程中，我们已经研究了这些自然事件发生的原因。就像构造板块的碰撞和分歧如何形成太平洋火环沿线的火山模式以及许多火山喷发一样。但要成为具有地理知识的人并充分理解是什么将自然事件变成自然灾害，我们必须记住，世界是作为一组物理、生物和社会系统而运作的。因此，我们还需要研究人类如何在这片土地上定居，以及富裕、经济和政治模式如何导致灾难——人文地理学的内容。事实上，每种自然灾害都有两个主要组成部分：实际的物理事件或过程以及对人类的潜在影响。物理事件是由我们所了解的所有物理过程驱动的。它们可能是热浪和气旋等气象事件，地震和火山爆发等地质事件，以及洪水、干旱、泥石流等水文事件。第二个组成部分——对人类的影响——将自然事件变成自然灾害。就像西伯利亚部分地区那样无人居住的严重洪水对人类的威胁要小得多，因此比雅加达这样人口稠密的城市中的轻微洪水危害要小。但澄清什么不是自然灾害也很重要。人为造成的事情，例如放射性废物或石油泄漏等污染事件，被视为人为灾难，通常被排除在外。当自然事件实际发生并对人类造成重大伤害时，我们称之为自然灾害。作为地理学家，我们想要比较不同的地方并回答“为什么这种危险会发生在这里而不是那里？”因此，为了评估危险，地理学家可能会考虑几个不同的维度。就像我们可能想以某种方式知道该事件有多大。洪水的高度或风暴的强度衡量事件的严重程度。 从很多方面来说，时间也是危害的一个重要维度。我们可能想知道发生的频率，例如洪水是季节性的还是罕见的，它是定期发生还是随机发生，以及它持续多长时间或事件的持续时间。干旱可能需要数周或数月的时间，而飓风或暴风雪可能会突然出现，因此我们还可以了解发生的速度。当然，作为地理学家，我们总是在思考空间。因此，我们可以跟踪地球表面的面积范围（例如受地震影响的区域有多大）以及该区域内的空间集中程度（例如受影响最严重的区域位于地震的震中） 最强烈的冲击。评估危害还可以告诉我们它们如何随着时间的推移而发生变化，并显示环境和人类成分如何变得更加紧密地交织在一起。随着人口的增长，我们倾向于搬到非常有吸引力但也构成高度环境危险的地区，例如许多城市位于沿海地区。或者可能还有其他优势，比如肥沃的火山土壤适合种植香蕉。我们的选择和社会制度正在增加自然事件的影响，并使某些人和地方比其他人更容易受到某些类型的危害的影响。我们在哪里可以找到机会或我们能负担得起的金钱对我们愿意接受的风险有很大影响。 与美国南部一样，新奥尔良目前约有一半位于海平面以下，低收入人群居住在地势最低的地区，这使得他们更容易受到洪水的影响。2005年卡特里娜飓风淹没了该市80%的地区，洪水高达6.1米，这些人因备灾和救灾问题而受到的打击最为严重。但在一次灾难中反应不佳并不是问题的全部。新奥尔良的税基因20 世纪 50 年代、60 年代和 70 年代的白人逃亡而受到侵蚀，当时白人——通常经济状况较好或能够参与银行和房地产市场——大批从 中心城区到郊区。剩下的人可征税的钱明显减少了。因此，随着时间的推移，该市的排水基础设施投资不足。由于卡特里娜飓风等情况越来越多，许多地理学家现在认为自然灾害或自然灾害等短语具有误导性。有人试图将其定义为“一个由人、环境和技术之间相互作用组成的复杂网络，其特征是多重原因和后果”。这也意味着有很多因素会影响一个地方人们的脆弱程度。正如人们普遍认为的那样，财富、教育、高度的社会组织和先进技术可以减少脆弱性。随着新奥尔良的重建，大量的能源和资金被集中用于加固堤坝、防洪墙、闸门和泵站，以减少未来飓风的脆弱性。但作为地理学家，我们想知道这是否在所有地方都是如此。2004 年节礼日海啸发生在现印度尼西亚苏门答腊岛西北海岸，是现代最具灾难性的自然
事件之一。其巨大威力和范围导致14 个国家超过 23 万人死亡。但在印度东南海岸附近的安达曼和尼科巴群岛，昂格人（Onge）是一个约有 100 人的部落，他们通过在森林深处的高地上避难来躲避“海浪的狂怒”，从而得以幸存。 ”。昂格人在小安达曼岛上生活了三万到五万年。他们的口头传统告诉他们有关海啸的知识，他们的民间传说则谈到“地面发生巨大震动，随后出现一道高高的水墙”。 尽管他们的定居点被彻底摧毁，但他们仍然遵循自己的传统而生存下来。因此，当我们评估脆弱性并研究如何减轻自然灾害时，我们必须考虑不同
人群与其环境的所有方式以及不同类型知识的价值。教科书和课堂教学很有用，但敏锐观察和生活在世界中的经验也同样有价值。这就是为什么许多具有地理知识的地理学家和备灾团队花费大量时间“在实地”，与社区的当地居民交谈并了解这些知识。评估一个地方现在或过去的脆弱程度有助于我们了解很多有关自然灾害的知识，但我们也必须应对后果。复原力的理念是灾害风险管理的一个重要方面，因为它将重点从脆弱性转移到恢复。在备灾中，复原力有多种不同的形式，被定义为系统吸收冲击和干扰的能力，但仍保持其当前的功能并从不利事件中恢复过来。例如，加德满都谷地的传统城镇规划和土地利用建立了强烈的社区意识，增强了社会复原力，社区的社会纽带有助于社区更快地恢复。在尼泊尔古老的历史城镇中，传统的开放空间，如铺砌的庭院、集市、社区广场和城镇边缘的较大开放空间，在节日、节日和仪式期间将社区聚集在一起。在 2015 年廓尔喀地震期间，社区将这些空间用作疏散场所，并在灾难期间和灾难后为家庭提供避难所。这些城镇的建筑采用混合木结构和砖石结构，具体代表了当地的文化和技术，同时也具有抗震功能。建筑物和房屋的设计目的是吸收外力并承受地震期间的位移。但这种建筑风格不一定有助于旧金山或东京等摩天大楼和高层建筑常见的城市的恢复能力。不同的文化对于风险、政府的角色和集体社会责任也可能有不同的态度。通常，使一个地方在本地或区域上具有弹性的因素确实是特定的，因此没有通用的解决方案。但韧性意味着前进的道路，增强城市和社区的韧性是国际、国家和国家以下各级的广泛政策目标。但无论我们如何准备，有些事情在自然灾害发生后就永远无法恢复。房屋和企业可以重建，财物可以找回，但我们也失去了一个地方，以及我们对地方的感觉和依恋。因此，我们的“你会住在哪里”游戏有一个严肃的元素。不断威胁我们家园的自然灾害让人精神疲惫，但对某些人来说，别无选择。人们应如何准备和适当应对灾害风险涉及理解和预测自然事件和公众认知、风险沟通、实施不同策略的能力以及道德和同情心。需要大量的知识、时间和精力，才能在恢复阶段加强社区的复原力，并增强应对未来灾害影响的能力。可能没有一个地方能够完全免受自然灾害的影响——尤其是在社会和环境挑战成倍增加的情况下。但当我们结束本系列的自然地理学部分时，我们希望能够更好地理解岩石结构、地貌、土壤、植被、气候和天气如何影响自然环境以及我们在其中的作用。当我们像自然地理学家一样思考时，我们就能更好地理解空间上的地方，并欣赏我们所处的任何景观的所有不同部分之间的所有联系——包括人类！未来的自然地理学家正在研究人类作为塑造和改变景观的因素，并关注环境变化和全球变暖。我希望我们每个人都能在生活中随身携带一份自然地理。如果我可以住在任何地方，我会住在太平洋火环上的某个地方，在那里我可以看到火山创造新的土地。或者靠近赞比西河的洪泛区，河流冲刷着地球。或者就在迈阿密，热带风暴既滋养又破坏着地貌，我可以在那里学习和探索人们如何以惊人的方式适应和创新。我可以在我的客厅里与您分享这一切并制作速成课程。请在评论中告诉我，我们学习自然地理学的时间在哪里激发了您对生活的梦想，下次我们开始探索人文地理学以及我们称之为家的名称和地点的重要性时，我们会再见。许多地图和边界代表了现代地缘政治划分，这些划分往往是在没有征得这片土地原住民的同意、许可或认可的情况下决定的。许多地理地名也不反映土著或原住民的语言。因此，我们在速成班想要承认这些人民与这片土地及其所有自然和人文地理要素的传统和持续的关系。我们鼓励您通过native-land.ca 等资源了解您称之为家的地方的历史，并通过当地土著和原住民提供的网站和资源与他们互动。感谢您观看这一集！
