BSc International Disaster Management and Humanitarian Response and Spanish / Course details

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Understanding hazard risk

Course unit fact file
Unit code HCRI20042
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 2
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This module seeks to understand how planning and fieldwork can improve our understanding of the environment to create dynamic solutions and ultimately reduce disaster risk. Natural systems are not stable when viewed over timescales of centuries and millennia. Over the last two million years the earth surface has experienced fluctuations and dramatic environmental changes. For the last 5,000 years, however, human impact on the environment has become so influential that it becomes difficult to separate natural process and human activity as agents of environmental change. In the past 200 years the change because of human impact has exposed the population to a variety of environmental hazards.  

This course will give students an understanding of past environmental change and seek to understand how global fluctuations in climate play a significant role in the development of our landscape, creating the conditions for disasters resulting from natural phenomena.  It will also seek to introduce major geological and hydrometeorological hazards and show how an understanding of the physical environment can play a role in adaptive capacity and governance through planning and field surveying as tools integral to disaster management.  

Aims

The course aims to:

• Develop an understanding of mechanism of global environmental change

• Develop an understanding of geological and hydrometeorological hazards within their environmental situation.

• Understand the role of environmental planning process to manage environmental change sustainably.

• Critically reflect on forms of hazard adaptation and mitigation and their relationship to managing disasters

• Develop fieldwork skills applied to hazard assessment  

Knowledge and understanding

Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Understand natural cycles in environmental systems / the implications of sudden changes 

• Developed understanding of geological and hydrometeorological hazards in locational contexts and the impact of environmental change.

• Spatial analysis as a mechanism for assessing hazard risk and vulnerability (applied to the UK).

• Critical understanding of management techniques employed to increase sustainable interaction with environment and manage environmental hazards.

• Develop an understanding of field techniques to assess environmental hazards in the field, create hazard maps and understand the implications of management. 

Intellectual skills

• Identify and evaluate patterns and trends in spatial data

• Investigate dynamic phenomena through interrogation of spatial and temporal data

• Consider the influence of the physical environment and understand the impact of change on the human environments.

• Critically analyse the links between geological and hydrometeorological hazards and understand causality in a multi-hazard environment.

• Apply understanding of environmental principles / hazards in planning to reduce risk and increase sustainability. 

Practical skills

• Analysing environmental data (with simple statistics) / identifying trends / patterns

• Hazard assessment using maps / field data / secondary sources / constructing hazard maps.

• Data collection in field environments

• Research skills, including planning, prioritisation of tasks, identification and location of sources, critical evaluation of findings

• Communicating analysis results in the form of map analysis  

• Participation in online and in-class discussions 

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Data analysis and interpretation skills.  
  • Experience in using GIS maps.  
  • Data collection and interpretation
  • Critical thinking, research and project management skills
  • Skills to help them interpret current and future hazard situations
  • Assessing change (through applied management solutions to hazards)
  • Ethical awareness 

Employability skills

Analytical skills
Data Analysis and report writing; GIS and spatial data analysis (ESRI ArcGIS Online)
Group/team working
Ability to work in a group and independently
Project management
Time management
Oral communication
Communication Skills
Problem solving
Problem Solving and decision making
Other
Use of relevant technology in field for data collection; Understand fieldwork safety considerations/risk assessment

Assessment methods

Assessment taskFormative or SummativeWeighting within unit (if summative) 
In class assessment tasks / quizzes and participation in group decision making Formative  
Fieldwork assessment – understanding the environment.  A situational assessment of a practical location with maps / fieldwork reports – commenting on field evidence to assess hazard impact. Summative60%
Decision making task - Using evidence from secondary data sources and existing literature – a critical review of environmental hazards and suggestions for disaster risk reduction (for a chosen geographical space).  This will be an individual report and will include a mapping element. Summative40%

Feedback methods

Feedback method Formative or Summative 
Informal oral feedback during class/labs Formative
Written feedback hazard decision making exercise returned to students according to SALC guidelines and time limits, using a bespoke rubric (adapted from the HCRI mark scheme – but applicable to learning outcome of project). Summative
Fieldwork – (formative) verbal fieldwork and guidance given during the course on fieldwork weeks and during fieldwork assessment task.  Summative feedback offered through a bespoke rubric adapted from HCRI mark scheme applicable to learning outcomes of assessment task). Summative / formative 
Additional one-to-one feedback (during the consultation hour or by making an appointment) Formative

Recommended reading

Bell, M., and Walker, M.J.C. (2014): Late Quaternary Environmental Change: physical and human perspectives. Longman

Bennison, G. M., Oliver, P. A. and Moseley, K. A. (2011) An introduction to geological structures and maps. 8th ed. / George M. Bennison, Paul A. Olver and Keith A. Moseley. London: Hodder  

Brown, S.K., Loughlin, S.C., Sparks, R.S.J., Vye-Brown, C., Barclay, J., Calder, E., Cottrell, E., Jolly, G., Komorowski, J.C., Mandeville, C.W. and Newhall, C., 2015. Global volcanic hazards and risk.

Cabinet Office. 2015, May 8. 2010-2015 government policy: emergency response planning. Policy Paper, UK Government. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-emergency-response-planning/2010-to-2015-government-policy-emergency-response-planning.

Cigna, F., Tapete, D. and Lee, K., 2018. Geological hazards in the UNESCO World Heritage sites of the UK: From the global to the local scale perspective. Earth-Science Reviews, 176, pp.166-194.

Coe A.L., (2010) Geological field Techniques, Wiley-Blackwell, Milton Keynes  

Disasters Deconstructed Podcast. https://disastersdecon.podbean.com/

EM-DAT. The International Disaster Database. https://www.emdat.be/

Finkl, C.W. ed., 2013. Coastal hazards (p. 840). Dordrecht: Springer.

Gibson, A.D., Culshaw, M.G., Dashwood, C. and Pennington, C.V.L., 2013. Landslide management in the UK—the problem of managing hazards in a ‘low-risk’environment. Landslides, 10, pp.599-610  

Grotzinger J., Jordan T.H., Press F., Siever R., (2007) Understanding Earth, W.H. Freeman and Co., New York  

Hardy, J. (2003): Climate change: causes, effects and solutions. John Wiley & Sons

Harvey A., (2016) Introducing Geomorphology, a guide to landforms and processes, Dunedin, Edinburgh,

Hemingway, R. and Gunawan, O., 2018. The Natural Hazards Partnership: A public-sector collaboration across the UK for natural hazard disaster risk reduction. International journal of disaster risk reduction, 27, pp.499-511.

Holden J., (2019) An Introduction to Physical Geography and the Environment, Pearson Education Limited, Edinburgh.

Houghton J (2015) Global warming the complete briefing – Cambridge university press – chapter 1 -4.

IPCC, 2021: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.  (Summary for policy makers)

IPPC interactive atlas (2021)  https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/  

Kelman, I. 2020. Disaster by Choice. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Lenon, B. J. and Cleves, P. G. (1983) Techniques and fieldwork in geography . Slough: University Tutorial Press.

López-Carresi, A., Fordham, M., Wisner, B., Kelman, I., and Gaillard, J. 2014. Disaster Management. International lessons in risk reduction, response and recovery. Routledge: New York.

Loughlin, S.C., Sparks, R.S.J., Sparks, S., Brown, S.K., Jenkins, S.F. and Vye-Brown, C. eds., 2015. Global volcanic hazards and risk. Cambridge University Press

Lowe, J.J. & Walker, MJC (2015): Reconstructing Quaternary Environments. 3rd edition. Routledge. ISBN 10:  1138173924 ISBN 13:  9781138173927

Perry, R. and Lindell, M. 2003. Preparedness for Emergency Response: Guidelines for the Emergency Planning Process, Disasters 27(4): 336-350.

Prevention Web (UNISDR). The knowledge platform for disaster risk reduction. https://www.preventionweb.net/english/  

Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K. et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461,

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Fieldwork 45
Seminars 33
Tutorials 10
Independent study hours
Independent study 112

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Martin Parham Unit coordinator

Additional notes

Mandatory field-based activities with cost involved for students 

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