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O-Level Disaster Risk Management (Topic 4.3)

why tectonic risks vary and how communities build and recover resilience

What the syllabus expects

• Disaster risk management works to prevent, reduce and manage disaster risks so as to strengthen resilience, applying plans and actions that communities shape into various strategies.
  Scope: How disaster risk management supports sustainable development
• Disaster risk and loss carry grave economic, social and environmental consequences, prove costly for individuals and nations, and can hold back development.
  Scope: How disaster risk management supports sustainable development
• Cutting disaster risk matters especially for disaster-prone developing countries and is a cost-effective way to prevent future losses, thereby aiding sustainable development.
  Scope: How disaster risk management supports sustainable development
• Tectonic disaster risk springs from the interaction between tectonic hazards and the vulnerability and exposure of people to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, risking loss of life and property.
  Scope: Why earthquake and volcanic disaster risks vary between places
• Earthquake disaster risk is shaped by hazard traits such as the duration and timing of shaking, by vulnerable conditions such as building design quality and soil and rock properties, and by exposure such as population density and distance from the epicentre.
  Scope: Why earthquake and volcanic disaster risks vary between places
• Volcanic disaster risk is shaped by hazard traits such as the chemical make-up of magma, by vulnerable conditions such as surface and ground water enabling lahars and prevailing winds spreading tephra, and by exposure such as the presence of settlements.
  Scope: Why earthquake and volcanic disaster risks vary between places
• Strengthening resilience matters for communities in hazard-prone zones so they can resist, adapt to and recover from disasters promptly and efficiently.
  Scope: How effective strategies are at building resilience to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
• Resilience-building strategies include lowering exposure through land use planning, reducing vulnerability through hazard-resistant building design, running monitoring and warning systems, and raising preparedness for response and recovery.
  Scope: How effective strategies are at building resilience to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
• Challenges to building resilience include the limits of a community's resources and its capacity to organise itself for disasters.
  Scope: How effective strategies are at building resilience to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
• Disaster management is the organisation, planning and application of strategies for responding to and recovering from disasters.
  Scope: How effective disaster management strategies are after an earthquake or eruption
• Response includes search and rescue, timely evacuation and the provision of basic social and psychosocial services, while recovery includes restoring and improving affected communities' facilities and living conditions.
  Scope: How effective disaster management strategies are after an earthquake or eruption
• Disaster management is hampered by a shortage of domestic technological and financial resources and by the difficulty of getting relevant stakeholders to collaborate and weave the strategies into their own practices.
  Scope: How effective disaster management strategies are after an earthquake or eruption

How it's examined

About 5% of the past-paper style questions in Rae's bank for this subject sit in this topic.

More O-Level Geography topics

Thinking Geographically (Topic 1.1) · Sustainable Development (Topic 1.2) · Geographical Methods (Topic 1.3) · Tourism Activity (Topic 2.1) · Tourism Development (Topic 2.2) · Sustainable Tourism Development (Topic 2.3) · all of O-Level Geography