Valdivia Earthquate Analysis

A natural disaster has the capability to cause large scale damage and destruction to an area. Seismic events have been known to alter landscapes and affect the livelihoods, health and development of communities. No two earthquake events are the same and the level of threat posed by an earthquake can vary due to both the human and physical factors of an area. The 2010 magnitude - 7.0 earthquake that occurred in Haiti is an example of where a natural disaster caused a previously vulnerable area to suffer tremendous loss and debilitating socio-economic impacts, to an already poverty-stricken nation.

Along this journey created by nature, the river interacts with man’s influence to encapsulate the full geographic experience of this region. The succession of dams along the river’s path is a major contribution to how man has decided to mesh with the river. The dams have created reservoirs for water supplies, harnessed energy to provide electric power to the southwestern region, and controlled flooding. Flood control was the main concern at the time between the years 1905 and 1907 when large floods broke through the irrigation gates and destroyed crops in California. The flooding was so large it actually created a 450 square mile sea, named the Salton Sea. As a result of this major disaster, ideas were formulated to

Earthquakes have afflicted the world since its inception. The sudden release of energy from volcanoes or displacing of earth plates can result in disasters of extreme magnitude. These usually naturally occurring phenomenon have been responsible from wiping out entire towns throughout history and until today continue to produce major loss of life and infrastructure. It can take years for a city or country to recover from a major event of this kind and when a third world country is involved, the result is usually exponentially worse than in a developed country. In the past decades Japan, Chile and Haiti have suffered the devastation an earthquake produces. This document will concentrate in Haiti, a small country in the Caribbean. On

natural disasters). Gallup et al. (2003, pp.41, 46) have estimated that natural disasters in Latin America over the last 30 years have cost up to $3.3 billion and in extreme disasters costs can reach 10 per cent of a country’s GDP. This, coupled with the fact that they suffer regularly from natural disasters due to their location, means that they find it harder to recover from them. The destruction of crops causes vast economic loss which cannot be regained as farmers rely on monoculture. Furthermore, many buildings in developing countries are often built from weak materials which causes mass destruction and costly re-construction which these countries cannot afford.

Tragic events that cause damage to property and life may destroy the social, cultural and economic life of a community. Communities must be engaged in the various phases from prevention to recovery to build disaster resilient communities. In order to do this, there must be a disaster preparedness plan in place that involves multiple people in various roles.

Yet, humans have limited control on natural events, so this only reinforces the importance of managing water wisely. Recently California’s government has begun to focus more on sustaining and restoring the water supply. Dale Kasler (2016) articulates in his article some of the steps they have decided to make to solve this serious issue. The government has made the following investments: “$415 million for watershed restoration and other environmental aid for Lake Tahoe; up to $335 million for two proposed reservoirs in California, including the Sites reservoir north of Sacramento; $880 million for flood-control projects on the American and Sacramento rivers in Sacramento; and $780 million for flood-control projects in West Sacramento” (para. 10). This could be the first step to restoring the water to California. But these

For this paper water structures and infrastructures were selected as focus points because the longer we wait to fix issues with them, the more expensive it will get, in other words, we are in a race against time. Studying the past it is easy to see how water availability made population explode in an area such as Southern California, where savvy marketing and great politics made it happen. Particularly, for Los Angeles and for the purposes of public narrative, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert does a great job at understanding and identifying the politics and key figures in getting water to Los Angeles. Great hydrologic structures were created using both manpower and water politics. It is important to state that there are connections between water, politics, environment, and geography when analyzing what the biggest problems involving water structures and infrastructures (Reisner.) We must think of water as both a socio-political issue and a natural resource, whose fate is molded by the understanding of its connectivity to itself, man-made structures, geography, environment, and society. The classes taken in this program have taught us ideals that in order to become a great water resource manager, one must master the political and scientific knowledge to make decisions that are prosperous for society and the environment. Furthermore, one must know the United States’ hydrological history in order to gain manipulation upon the system that makes it both thrive and deteriorate.

Effective disaster management is highly important when it comes to assisting in rescue and relief to affected. This does not only include post disaster rescue efforts but these disaster management activities should be proactive. They start right from taking preventive measures before the disaster actually occurs and goes on till the effected people are resettled back in their lives. This disaster management pertaining to human life is not only associated with physical well being but also focuses on psychological, emotional, and spiritual rehabilitation.

In order to accommodate rising populations and the need for water within the City of Los

Water is vital to the survival of man. Settlers fought over it, farmers depend on it, and communities rely on it. Fort Huachuca and Sierra Vista are no exception. Located in one of the driest states in the U.S., they rely on the San Pedro River watershed for water. Barbara Tellman and Diane Hadley’s (1999) book Crossing Boundaries, talks of travelers in the 1800s who were amazed to see cottonwood lined streams of the San Pedro after traveling for days in desert uplands (p.11). Fort Huachuca was established because of the water source at the foot of the Huachuca Mountains, needed by Captain S.M. Whiteside, his troops and their horses (Price, 2003, p31). In 1902 Congress enacted the National Reclamation Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Act recognized the importance of water to western development. Sierra Vista continues to grow, the use of ground water increases causing the water table to drop. As the water table drops, more human, plant and animal life are affected. To understand the significance of water in the Sierra Vista/ Fort Huachuca area, it is important to know where the water comes from, why it is so important and how it can be protected. Sierra Vista’s water is not infinite. There may not be enough

Every time a flood would occur, this town in southern arizona would get destroyed. Water would fill the town, drowning everything we know and love. Something needed to happen, or else we would have to restart yet again. 1875. A possible solution came forth. Don Diego Jaeger had the answers Yuma had been so desperately trying to find. An irrigation canal is what he came up with. A long, narrow trench to catch the flood waters when the Colorado River overflowed. This would also give an efficient use to the surplus water content we were getting. But it did not work out the way he had hoped. He gave up. Although the canal was still built. Finished in 1877, was a 187 feet long trench that could fit a steamboat. Although working, it didn’t bring us the hope we

With the exposure to the global and local climate change issues, I have analyzed the challenges of climate change in different sectors and the importance of adaptation to develop a resilient community. The research study has been proposed by me based on experienced related to climate change and disaster management. For this I incorporated the knowledge and skills I have gained from various countries by being participated in academic and training programmes for last 14 years. This will help me to continue and gain a recognized research output in my proposed research

Due to diverse geo-climatic conditions prevalent in different parts of the globe, different types of natural disasters like floods, droughts, earthquakes, cyclones, landslides, and volcanoes etc may strike according to the vulnerability of the area.

While natural disasters such as floods, drought and hurricanes are commonly thought to occur due to environmental forces such as weather, climate and tectonic movements; a deeper investigation into the ‘disaster’ displays other contributing forces. Human factors have a large, if not equal, contribution to the occurrance and outcome of such disasters (Pelling, 2001). As Pelling (2001) argues, there is both a physical and human dimension to ‘natural disasters’. The extent to which the natural occurrence of a physical process, such as a flood or earthquake, impacts on society is constructed by that society, creating a ‘disaster’ as measured by a

It seems that the earthquake brought a trail of things that happen later. So we can learn for this that physical geography and human geography are connected and affects each other almost every time.