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neurologyYou need to know

• A natural hazard is a natural process or event that has the potential to cause death, injury, damage, disruption or environmental loss when it affects people or valued places.
• Geophysical hazards are caused by processes inside the Earth, atmospheric hazards are caused by processes in the atmosphere, and hydrological hazards are caused by water-related processes.
• Risk in a hazard context is the chance of harmful impacts occurring, and it is shaped by the size of the hazard, people’s exposure to it and their vulnerability.
• Exposure means people, buildings, infrastructure or economic activity are located in places where a hazard can affect them.
• Vulnerability means the degree to which people or places are likely to be harmed by a hazard, often because of poverty, weak governance, poor building quality, age, health or limited preparedness.
• A hazard becomes a disaster when it overwhelms the affected community’s ability to cope using its own resources.
• Hazard perception is influenced by past experience, education, wealth, culture, religion, media coverage, trust in authorities and the frequency or magnitude of previous events.
• Fatalism is the belief that hazard impacts are unavoidable, whereas adaptation and mitigation aim to reduce risk by changing behaviour, buildings, land use or management systems.
• The Park model shows human response to a hazard through stages of pre-disaster normality, disruption, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction, with recovery returning to the same, better or worse quality of life than before.
• The Hazard Management Cycle includes mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery, and it is used to reduce future hazard impacts as well as manage events when they occur.
• The Earth is structured into continental and oceanic crust, the lithosphere, asthenosphere, mantle, outer core and inner core; the outer core is liquid and the inner core is solid.
• Continental crust is generally thicker, older, less dense and more silica-rich than oceanic crust, while oceanic crust is thinner, younger, denser and commonly recycled at subduction zones.
• Plate tectonic theory explains that the lithosphere is divided into tectonic plates that move over the asthenosphere due to processes including mantle convection, ridge push, slab pull and gravitational sliding.
• Constructive plate margins occur where plates move apart, forming ocean ridges in oceanic settings and rift valleys in continental settings, with shallow earthquakes and basaltic volcanism.
• Destructive plate margins occur where plates converge, producing subduction zones, deep sea trenches, island arcs, composite volcanoes, earthquakes and, in continental collision zones, young fold mountains.
• Conservative plate margins occur where plates slide past each other, producing earthquakes but little or no volcanic activity because crust is neither created nor destroyed.
• Magma plumes are columns of unusually hot mantle that rise towards the surface and can create hot spots, volcanic islands and island chains as a plate moves over a relatively fixed plume.
• Volcanic hazards include lava flows, pyroclastic flows or nuées ardentes, ash fallout, tephra, volcanic gases, acid rain, lahars, flooding and tsunamis.
• Seismic hazards include ground shaking, surface rupture, tsunamis, liquefaction and landslides, and their impacts vary with earthquake magnitude, depth, distance from the epicentre, geology and levels of development.
• Tropical storms form over warm tropical oceans, usually above about 26.5°C, where moist rising air, low pressure, weak vertical wind shear and the Coriolis effect support organised rotating storm systems.

• Classify natural hazards accurately as geophysical, atmospheric or hydrological, using the process that causes the hazard as the basis for the decision.
• Analyse hazard risk by linking hazard magnitude and frequency with exposure, vulnerability and risk drivers such as poverty, governance, population density and land use.
• Explain the Park model and Hazard Management Cycle using the correct sequence of stages and linking each stage to examples of human response.
• Compare plate margin types by describing plate movement, dominant processes, characteristic landforms and likely seismic or volcanic hazards.
• Interpret maps of global hazard distribution by relating volcanoes, earthquakes, tropical storms and wildfires to plate margins, hot spots, ocean temperature, climate and vegetation conditions.
• Classify hazard impacts as primary or secondary and as social, economic, environmental or political, using precise evidence from named events.
• Evaluate short-term and long-term responses to volcanic, seismic, storm and wildfire hazards by judging how far they reduce vulnerability, exposure or future risk.
• Explain why impacts differ between contrasting places by linking physical factors, such as geology or storm track, with human factors, such as wealth, preparedness, infrastructure and governance.
• Use named case-study evidence to analyse the causes, hazards, impacts and responses of a recent volcanic event, seismic event, wildfire event and two contrasting tropical storms.
• Assess why people continue to live in hazardous or multi-hazardous environments by weighing risks against resilience, adaptation, economic benefits, cultural attachment and management strategies.