Urban Risks

What are urban risks? Leaving aside the semantics regarding "risk" and "vulnerability" we can redefine the question as "What could go wrong in an urban area?".Well, we have natural hazards such as avalanches, landslides, droughts, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and wildfire, we also have technological hazards such as airplane accidents and nuclear power plants (but seriously, who can name a nuclear accident other than Chernobyl?) and one should not forget the newest hazard: Terrorism.

But why do we have these hazards in our urban areas? The short answer is that people are stupid and build their houses where they shouldn't build them or perhaps they simply do not know better. Poverty could also have something to do with it in some cases.

The "funny" thing however, is that in the U.S. you are far more likely to die from heart disease or cancer than from any "natural" disaster. The thing is that the Newspapers do not consider such events as "70 year old man dies from natural causes" as newsworthy and thus you only hear of the large disasters where many lives are lost.

So what makes urban risks important then? Well the urban population is high and still growing. There are also several key structures in urban areas (airports, hospitals etc) that cause severe difficulties for many if damaged. If we look at where people live, now is the first time there are more people living in an urban area than in the rural areas.

When an urban area is struck, not only are lives lost but there is also a lot of damage to properties which may have socioeconomic repercussions.

So what can be done then? well for one, the make-shift houses has to go and some more rigid structures be put up in their places. Some cities should move, pepople should not build in tornado valley etc. It is a question about mostly money but also about education to some extent. But something that can "actually" be done would be to place important structures as hospitals and fire stations away from the danger area so that the emergency personnel is not affected by a catastrophe.

The Keywords here are Protect, Adapt and Retreat/Relocate, all may not be an option due to cost but if a human life would be valued more than the monetary cost would perhaps not seem as steep anymore.

As a task we were to do a list of weighed hazards for Europe and then see how well it adapts to our home town. Being that my hometown is Vaasa I would dare to say that it does not actually have any risk. It was once burned down and relocated closer to the shoreline so perhaps a dramatic rise in sea level could cause some damage but that is the only risk I see.

I would dare to guess that the purpose of the exercise was to show that risk is different due to differences in local environment (rivers, mountains etc).