A hazard is a situation which poses a level of threat to life Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have self-sustaining biological processes ("alive," "living"), from those which do not —either because such functions have ceased (death), or else because they lack such functions and are classified as "inanimate.", health Health is generally defined as being "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" according to the World Health Organization, property Property is any physical or virtual entity that is owned by an individual or jointly by a group of individuals. An owner of property has the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer and exchange his or her property. Important widely-recognized types of property include real property , personal property (physical possessions belonging to an or environment The natural environment, commonly referred to simply as the environment, is a term that encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. Most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk Risk is a concept that denotes the precise probability of specific eventualities. Technically, the notion of risk is independent from the notion of value and, as such, eventualities may have both beneficial and adverse consequences. However, in general usage the convention is to focus only on potential negative impact to some characteristic of of harm, however, once a hazard becomes 'active', it can create an emergency An emergency is a situation which poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative care for the aftermath situation.
Modes of a Hazard
Wreck on rocks off Orchard Beach, The Bronx during the winter of 2007.A hazard is usually used to describe a potentially harmful situation, although not usually the event itself - once the incident has started it is classified as an emergency An emergency is a situation which poses an immediate risk to health, life, property or environment. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation, although in some situations, mitigation may not be possible and agencies may only be able to offer palliative care for the aftermath or incident. There are a number of modes for a hazard, which include:
- Dormant - The situation has the potential to be hazardous, but no people, property or environment is currently affected by this. For instance, a hillside may be unstable, with the potential for a landslide A landslide is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rock falls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments. Although the action of gravity is the primary driving force for a landslide to occur, there are other contributing factors, but there is nothing below or on the hillside which could be affected.
- Potential - Also known as 'Armed', this is a situation where the hazard is in the position to affect persons, property or environment. This type of hazard is likely to require further risk assessment Risk assessment is a step in a risk management process. Risk assessment is the determination of quantitative or qualitative value of risk related to a concrete situation and a recognized threat . Quantitative risk assessment requires calculations of two components of risk: R, the magnitude of the potential loss L, and the probability p, that the.
- Active - The hazard is certain to cause harm, as no intervention is possible before the incident occurs.
- Mitigated - A potential hazard has been identified, but actions have been taken in order to ensure it does not become an incident. This may not be an absolute guarantee of no risk, but it is likely to have been undertaken to significantly reduce the danger.
Classifying Hazards
By its nature, a hazard involves something which could potentially be harmful to a person's life, health, property or to the environment. There are a number of methods of classifying a hazard, but most systems use some variation on the factors of Likelihood of the hazard turning into an incident and the Seriousness of the incident if it were to occur.
A common method is to score both likelihood and seriousness on a numerical scale (with the most likely and most serious scoring highest) and multiplying one by the other in order to reach a comparative score.
Risk = Likelihood of Occurrence x Seriousness if incident occurred.
This score can then be used to identify which hazards may need to be mitigated. A low score on likelihood of occurrence may mean that the hazard is dormant, whereas a high score would indicate that it may be an Active hazard.
Causes of hazards
There are many causes , but they can broadly be termed into:
- Natural - Natural hazards include anything which is caused by a natural process, and can include obvious hazards such as volcanoes A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot, molten rock, ash, and gases to escape from below the surface. Volcanic activity involving the extrusion of rock tends to form mountains or features like mountains over a period of time. The word volcano is derived from Italian vulcano, after Vulcan, the Roman to smaller scale hazards such as loose rocks on a hillside
- Man-made - Hazards created by humans, which includes a huge array of possibilities, probably too many to list, as it includes long term (and sometimes disputed) effects such as global warming Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C during the last century.[A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas to immediate hazards such as building sites
- Activity related - Some hazards are created by the undertaking of a certain activity, and the cessation of the activity will negate the risk. This includes hazards ie. flying.
There are many types of hazards in our daily lives.
Categories: Emergency management This category is for general articles and categories about the theory and management of disasters and emergencies. For articles and categories about individual disasters, see Category:Disasters, for articles and categories about the phenomena causing disasters, see Category:Hazards | Safety Categories: Prevention | Security | Risk | Risk Categories: Core issues in ethics | Security | Information, knowledge, and uncertainty | Applied probability
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