Welcome to my blog for Geology: Natual Hazards!

    Week 1 Blog:
    This week for my blog, I will be discussing the differences between Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes and write a bit about a country that I will continuously come back to about its natural hazards, Finland.
    As you can see below, Finland is a small country in between, Russia and Sweden and the south end of the country is surrounded by The Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia.

    Some interesting facts about Finland...

    - The North of Finland, from August to April, you can experience the Northern Lights and the Auroral activity peaks at the beginning and the end of the season.

    - In the very North of Finland, Lapland, the sun stays above the horizon for more than two months between Mid-May and late July. Also, in the Southern parts of Lapland the sun stays up constantly for a month in June-July. 

Hazard, Disaster, and Catastrophe

Hazard: Is a process and event that is a potential threat to human life and property. The process and events themselves are not a hazard, but become so because of human use of land. For example, most hazards are dormant or potential, with only a theoretical risk of harm, but once a hazard become "active", it can create an emergency. The five types of hazards are physical, chemical, biological, psychological, and ergonomic. An example of a hazard would be the risk of a landslide by a house.

Disaster: A disaster is a hazardous event that occurs over a limited time span within a defined area. Criteria for a natural disaster are 1) 10 or more people are killed, 2) 100 or more people are affected, 3) a state of emergency is declared, and 4) international assistance is requested.  For example, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is remembered as one of the worst natural disasters in United States history. 

Catastrophe: Is a massive disaster that requires a significant amount of money and a long time (often years) for recovery to take place. For example, Hurricane Katrina, which flooded New Orleans and damaged much of the coastline of Mississippi in 2005, was the most damaging and costly catastrophe in the history of the United States. Recovery from this catastrophe has taken years and is still recovering in parts of New Orleans.