Student: Julian Cross
Graduation date: May 2014
Type: Concentration (single major)
Date approved: November 2012
Summary
Before I explain my questions, I thought it would be important to provide the definitions that I will be using for the concepts of “hazard”, “risk” and “vulnerability”. The definitions of these concepts are highly debated and most of the literature on disasters uses working definitions. A natural hazard is the potential threat of harm to humans and human systems by natural, physical and environmental events. Vulnerability is the realized threat of harm to human systems. According to the “disaster pressure model”, risk is the intersection of a hazard with some amount of vulnerability, thus risk is the actual likelihood for harm to people, incorporating many other societal variables. (Blaikie 1994; Robbins 2010)
The Pacific Rim is a region that is composed of all the countries that form the perimeter of the Pacific Ocean basin. The tectonic setting of the Pacific Rim, defined by convergent margins (oceanic-continental and oceanic-oceanic), has led to the term “The Pacific Ring of Fire” because of its relatively high volcanism and seismicity. The Pacific Ocean also drives many atmospheric hazards in this region, for example typhoons, droughts and monsoon floods.
With my first question I seek to gain a sense of what kinds of hazards, atmospheric and geologic, threaten Pacific Rim nations. I would like to understand the geophysical systems that cause these hazards – e.g. the El Niño Southern Oscillation controls many of the atmospheric hazards around the Pacific Rim.
The second question is more focused on severity and geographical distribution. I would analyze what physiographic conditions – aspects of the physical environment – around the Pacific Rim make for different hazard regimes. For example, an offshore subduction zone creates the hazard of both a major earthquake and a devastating tsunami, while a strike-slip fault only produces an earthquake. Another example relating to atmospheric and geologic systems is the effect of wind direction on the areas that experience ash fallout after an Andean eruption.
In the same way that my second question deals with the physical environment, my third question looks into how the human landscape increases exposure to potential loss of life and property. I want to know how the variability of the many social and historical processes – e.g. settlement patterns, perception of risk and longevity of inhabitation – in all the nations around the Pacific Rim have produced differing amounts of vulnerability. For example, the Japanese culture has evolved to the hazards of a subduction zone island arc over the many centuries it has been settled in the Japanese islands; on the other hand, the Spanish settlers of Chile, on the west coast of South America, have had less than 400 years to adapt to the hazards present.
My fourth question is an instrumental one in which I want to explore possible actions that can be taken to decrease vulnerability and avoid loss of life and property damage. These preparation efforts could include: effective monitoring, improved predictive capabilities, risk assessment to determine vulnerability, and prevention through avoiding risky areas. Response efforts might include: better warning infrastructure and effective evacuation plans.
Questions
- Descriptive: What are the geologic and atmospheric hazards that occur with highest frequency and greatest magnitude around the Pacific Rim?
- Explanatory: What characteristics of the physical environment around the Pacific Rim control the severity and geographic distribution of these natural hazards? In hazardous environments, how does the historic movement of people, development of society, and perception of risk increase or decrease the likelihood for disaster? (Evaluative) What are some of the key social and historical processes that increase the vulnerability to a hazard in different populations of the Pacific Rim?
- Instrumental: With both the dynamic physical and social controls in mind, what significant preparation and response efforts can be made in this region to avoid future disasters and mitigate the effects of disasters that have already occurred?
Concentration courses
- GEOL 280 (The Fundamentals of Hydrology, 4 credits), spring 2012. An understanding of the physical systems that control the behavior of terrestrial water is highly relevant for studying climactic hazards like floods and droughts. Additionally, in this course we learn how to determine if an event is a chronic or catastrophic hazard. Being able to determine the hazard posed by mass-movements requires knowing how water flows over the surface of the land and underground as groundwater. Additionally, the manipulation of raw data into maps, graphs and statistics that shed light on patterns is a fundamental skill to have when studying physical systems.
- GEOL 240 (Spatial Problems in Geology, 4 credits), spring 2012. This course has as an objective the mastery of GIS, which is a highly important skill I will incorporate in studying geologic hazards around the Pacific Rim. In addition to building on a GIS and analytical skill set, this course, through the various issue based projects, helped me develop a formal scientific writing voice. One of the projects from this course involved mapping land use change on Mount Fuji, Japan, there was a very important hazard studies element to this project. The mount Fuji landscape encourages a thriving forestry and plantation economy, additionally the Mountain is of much spiritual importance to the Japanese; the complexity of the Mountain as benefactor but also a danger is highly relevant to my studies.
- ENVS 499 (Independent Study Pre- & Post-Chile, 4 credits), spring 2012/2013. This two part independent study would focus on the geologic hazards related to the subduction zone environment of Chile and Oregon. I will be studying abroad next fall in Chile; the first part of this independent study will happen before going abroad and the second part will happen after going abroad. Both Chile and Oregon are rich places to study volcanism and seismology, and many comparisons can be drawn. The first part of this independent study would look to identify the spatial and temporal patterns of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and their related tsunamis. This first section would also look to gain insight on the perceptions of the higher magnitude events and the preventative measures taken to prepare for future events. The second half of this independent study will incorporate the comparison of Chile and Oregon and possibly a case study of one specific event in each place.
- ENVS 490 (Topics in ENVS- (Un)Natural Disasters, 4 credits), fall 2014. This course provides another avenue for analyzing past natural hazard events, however, the focus of this course would be under a wider, global lens rather than focused on Pacific Rim nations. As is evident in the title, much of this course will deal with how social, economic and political contexts produced extreme consequences from “natural” disasters of varying magnitudes. Another focus of this course is to explore anthropogenic natural disasters like oil spills like the Deep Water Horizon spill and nuclear reactor meltdowns like Chernobyl.
Arts and humanities courses
- HIST 400 (Natural Disaster Colloqium, 4 credits), spring 2014. This course explores human-environment relationships through time and on a global scale. Several topics from this course are very important to my concentration. For example, evolving perceptions of nature illuminate how a given culture relates to biophysical forces. We studied the role that the physical environment took in religious texts from early history like “Popul Vuh” of the Maya and the Bible. This class also explores the reactions to disasters like the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and the perennial fires in Edo, Japan. Finally, this course will provide me with a tool kit for doing historical analysis. This tool kit allows me to understand the historical processes that control settlement patterns, perceptions and longevity of inhabitation of Pacific Rim nations.