Natural Hazards & Disasters: Basic Concepts

(5th Edition 2004)

Neil Ericksen

Table of Contents
Page List of Tables ........................................................................ List of Figures ..................................................................... Summary: Key Ideas about Natural Hazards .................... A Common Language ......................................................... Natural Hazard Concepts .................................................... Interactive........................................................................... Dynamic ............................................................................. Functional .......................................................................... Feedback. ........................................................................... Risk..................................................................................... Are They 'Natural' Hazards? ............................................... Reducing Natural Hazards and Losses.............................. Altering Losses................................................................... Altering Natural Events..................................................... Altering Human Uses ........................................................ Integrated Approach........................................................... Flood Hazard Mitigation...................................................... Why This Pattern? ............................................................. The Consequences............................................................. Resource Management Act 1991...................................... Appendix 1: Glossary.......................................................... References Cited.................................................................. ii iii 1 2 2 3 4 7 9 10 10 10 11 12 12 13 13 17 17 17 19 20

Summary of Key Ideas About Natural Hazards

Natural hazards are not the natural events

Natural hazards are not the actual disasters. Natural hazards indicate potential disasters. People help create natural hazards and disasters by locating (settling) in areas where extreme natural events may or do occur. Natural hazards consist of the interaction between possible human use of an area and possible extreme natural events Natural disasters consist of the interaction between actual human use of an area and actual extreme natural events. People often take action to reduce losses or the threat of losses from extreme natural events. The most popular actions (relief and rehabilitation and controlling the natural event) reduce some losses, but increase disaster potential (the natural hazard) because they encourage people to settle in hazardous areas. Land use planning is not popular even though it does reduce disaster potential (ihe natural hazard) by directing people to settle hazardous areas more wisely. Because natural hazards and disasters are human creations, land use planning is the most effective way to reduce both losses and hazards caused by extreme natural events. Preventing disasters requires aiming our efforts not so much at controlling nature and relieving losses, but at the natural hazards that people are responsible for creating. Peoples' attitudes and behaviours towards natural events, natural hazards and disasters, and adjustments to them, need to change for our environment to become less hazardous.

A Common Language
Whatever it is we study, we require 'language' for communicating ideas to others. We need some basic concepts and definitions so that we have a common language for the topic of interest. This point may seem obvious, but if you read the literature on hazards (and related things) you will find it spiked with loose language. Hazard, disaster, risk, and event are four key words that get used interchangeably and often incorrectly. (See Glossary, Appendix 1.) Loose language impedes our ability to grasp key ideas associated with the study of natural hazards and disasters.

Natural Hazard Concepts

When seeking to use natural resources for our benefit we often expose ourselves to forces of nature that adversely affect our settlements and activities. These 'extreme natural events' include things like: severe winds, too much or too little rain (floods and droughts), earthquakes, landslides, insect infestations, bacterial infections, and the like. Some of these 'natural events' appear In Table 1. They are identified by main causal agent and are broadly grouped into geophysical and biological events. When extreme natural events occur in areas occupied or used by people the effects of these events or the 'impact' results in a 'disaster' or 'catastrophe'. It is these disasters that get headlined in newspapers. However, it is important to grasp that the idea natural events and disasters resulting from them are not natural hazards. Rather, the 'hazard' is the potential for disaster. The hazard is the relationship that can be seen between a potential natural event in a given area and the actual or potential human occupation or use of that area (Figure 1). There are a number of interrelated concepts that stem from this notion of a natural hazard. These concepts are explained in the following sub-sections: 1) interactive: 2) dynamic: 3) functional: 4) feedback: and 5) risk concepts.

Interactive Concept
The interactive notion of a natural hazard can be illustrated by use of a Venn diagram (Figure 1). If it helps your thinking, substitute any type of event for the word 'natural' on the diagram, e.g., flood, earthquake, coastal erosion or severe wind. If the hazard is the interaction between the potential natural event and human use (actual or potential) of the area in question, then any change of scale in either natural event or human use will alter the effect of the hazard. Thus, the hazard is both dynamic and functional.

1a
NATURAL HAZARDS Are the possibility of:

Eg. Avalanche Tsunami Flood Drought Earthquake hurricane

Eg Ski resort Town farm Building crops

IN DIFFERENT PLACES AND OVER TIME

1b
NATURAL DISASTERS Are the ACTUAL occurrence of:

Eg. Avalanche Flood Earthquake

Eg Village Farm Buildings etc

IN DIFFERENT PLACES AND OVER TIME

Fig 1: The distinction between Natural Hazard and Natural Disaster. The rectangle at the top (Fig 1a) represents all possibilities of resource development in a given area. The circle on the left represents the potential or actual human use of the area. The right hand circle represents potential for extreme natural event. The intersection of the overlapping circles represents the Natural Hazards. The rectangle and circles at the bottom (Fig 1b) define the actual disaster, it being the impact of an actual event on existing human uses of an area.

Dynamic Concept
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The 'dynamic' nature of a hazard can be illustrated by adding further information to the Venn diagram, as illustrated in Figure 2. Imagine the natural event is a flood that could affect a city and Its people (human use of the floodplain). The small circle on the left of the diagram represents the scale of urban development in the past; the intermediate circle, current development; and the large circle suggests future development. These circles (in Figure 2) are overlapped by others representing small, medium, and large flood events. The scale of hazard varies according to size of the circle on the left and right of the diagram: the human use and flood event, respectively.

Fig 2: The creation of flood hazard or disaster potential. In this model the hazard in the community varies with the size of flood event and the extent of urban development on the flood plain. The model depicts increasing encroachment on to the flood plain, so that for any flood of a given size, future disasters will be larger than past disasters (Ericksen, 1986).

A specific example will be used to substantiate these ideas. The map in Figure 3 shows the change in built-up area of the northern part of Invercargill in decades since 1953. Superimposed on the pattern of city growth is the areal spread of the flood that occurred in January 1984. If that flood event is accepted as a constant, then the growth in flood hazard (the potential for disaster) in Invercargill over the last 30 years was a direct consequence of increased settlement in flood-prone areas Of the City. The consequence of this human creation of flood hazard was the disaster in 1984, which is illustrated in the photograph in Figure 4 (Ericksen, 1986).

Fig. 3. The creation of flood hazard or disaster potential in northern Invercargill, 1953-1984. In this map, the flood event is that which occurred in January 1984. Two-thirds of the built-up area in the flooded area was created after 1953. Over one-quarter of the built-up area was created in the last decade. The hazard or disaster potential became a reality when $55 million in insured property was lost in 1984 (Ericksen, 1986).

Fig. 4. An oblique aerial photograph of the flood disaster in northern Invercargill, 31 January - 2 February 1984, showing flooded suburbs of Collingwood and Grasmere looking up North Rd over the Waihopai River bridge. Photo covers the left of centre of the map in Figure 3. looking north-north-west towards an area flooded by Waikiwi Stream (top left corner). (Courtesy: Soufhland Calchment Board).

FLOOD LOSSES

Tangible PROPERTY LOSSES

e.g, buildings, contents, roads, power poles, vehicles

Tangible SOCIAL DISRUPTION

eg, lost production, cut social services like Water, power, etc.

Intangible HUMAN CASUALITIES

eg, loss of life, Physical and mental injuries

Direct PRIMARY LOSSES

eg. Flood damaged buildings, vehicles, bridges, rail lines

Direct SECONDARY LOSSES

e.g., flood-causes, fire damage to property

Indirect PRIMARY DISRUPTIONS

e.g., lost business due to flooded premises; cost of

Indirect SECONDARY DISRUPTIONS

e.g., lost family income due to flooded work-place

evacuations

Fig. 5. Types of flood losses: property losses, including direct primary and secondary losses; primary and secondary social disruptions; and human casualties (Ericksen, 1986

Functional Concept
That natural hazards are functional1 is apparent from the fact that the scale and nature of the hazard depends, in part, on the type and intensity of the human use of an area. If an area is in rough grazing then the hazard is low and the losses that result from a flood event quite small. If exactly the same flood event was foreseen as affecting dense housing in the area hen the hazard would be high and losses would be large if the event occurred (See Figure 9 later in booklet). Similarly, trellised kiwi fruit will suffer more in an extreme wind than grass. Hazards, and the disasters that result when extreme events occur, are not 'Acts of God' or 'freaks of nature'. They are human creations. They stem from human efforts to use the resources in an environment. What is a hazard to one group may, however, be a resource to another. For example, if an area is experiencing a drought and there is a sudden deluge, the resulting runoff may fill long-depleted reservoirs. This would improve city water-supplies and/or water-based recreational resources. The same rains may, however, cause disastrous flooding of parched farmlands and low-lying areas of urban settlements. A disaster results in losses to property, social disruption and human casualties. Various forms of loss- direct and indirect- are shown in the chart in Figure 5. Newspapers highlight these losses.

EXTREME NATURAL EVENT HAZARDS EFFECTS HUMAN USE

RESOURCES

Fig. 6. A simple systems model of natural hazards showing the interrelationships between natural event, human use, and hazard effects that results from resource development (Adapted from Kates. 1970; 1971).

ALTER NATURAL EVENT

NATURAL EVENT

HUMAN USE

HAZARD Event Use Response EFFECT LOSSES

DECIDING WHAT THIINGS CAN BE DONE TO ALTER LOSSES AND HAZARD EFFECTS

ALTER HUMAN USE

Property Disruption Casualties

ALTER LOSSES

Fig 7. A simple systems model of natural hazards showing the influence of measures aimed at reducing losses. Some measures aim to directly alter the atural event; some directly alter the human use of an area; and others aim to lter the actual losses. Thus, the hazard is a function of event, use, and ctions taken to reduce losses. The feedback arrows suggest that alteration to ne part of the system affects all other parts. Careful consideration of these nteractions can reveal counterintuitive consequences of some actions (Adapted rom Kates, 1970; 1971).

Feedback Concept
If it is agreed that alteration of human use of an area leads to changes in the nature ot hazard (or disaster potential), then what we do to 'reduce' the potential for disasters, by definition also alter the hazard. This may seem circular and obvious, but the point is extremely important. Many people who have had responsibility for reducing losses from extreme natural events have failed to recognize this distinction between hazard and disaster and their actions have often aggravated both. People do not usually become concerned about hazards, until a disaster occurs. When a disaster happens people, and communities of people, often decide to do things that will reduce future losses. The things they do also affect the hazard. Thus, our definition of a natural hazard must include not only 'natural event' and 'human use', but also the 'things we do to reduce losses.' (The things we do are often called adjustments or measures or actions.) Why should it be important to include this third component? Because some things people do to reduce losses, actually make the hazard worse. This idea will be explored further in the final section on Flood Hazard Mitigation It is perhaps helpful to think about this paradoxical situation, by modeling the natural hazard as a simple system (Figure 6), Once this has been done we can deal directly with the things (adjustments) we do to reduce losses and the implications these actions have (or hazards or potential disasters. The event, use, and hazard identified in the Venn diagrams in Figures 1 and 2, and depicted for Invercargill in Figure 3, are restated in the systems model in Figure 6, together with the potential effects of the hazard. The many measures that can be taken to reduce potential losses may be classified into those that influence: the natural event; human use of an area; and disaster effects or tosses. They are listed in Table 2 (later in this booklet). These three main influences are shown in Figure 7 as feedback arrows. Each arrow flows back to the hazard box and onto disaster effects. The model therefore stresses the interactive and dynamic nature of natural hazards.

Risk Concept
The risk is a measure of the vulnerability of a particular area to natural events of a given size or magnitude. The evaluation of risk is based on records of past events. The longer and more detailed the record, the better the estimation of risk. The risk is expressed in terms of the likelihood (chance or probability) of an event of given size occurring. The larger the event the less likely it will occur. If the probability of a large event is 1 percent (or 1 chance in 100) in any year, then the fact that the event happened this year does not lessen the chance of it happening next year. (Think of it as tossing a coin. There is a 50:50 chance of heads or tails on each toss. Turning up heads on one throw does not affect or reduce the 50 percent chance of getting heads on the next throw.) Obviously, the size of an event and the frequency with which it recurs relate to other dimensions of the event. A large, rare flood, for example, will be deeper and more widespread over the floodplain than a small flood. Rare droughts last longer and often affect larger areas than moderate droughts, and so on. Thus, various parameters of the event are interrelated and the overall phenomenon (or natural event) may be thought of as functioning parts of a complex physical system. It is important for people who have responsibility for reducing hazards and losses to know the physical dimensions of the natural event. These include parameters shown in the table below. These physical dimensions must be related to human use patterns in the area at risk for the nature of the hazard to be properly detailed. Only then can effective action be taken. For example, people may use land use planning, insurance, and emergency actions to reduce losses, but in order to be effective, these actions require information on the levels of risk for different areas. That is, for example, the size and frequency of the event and the area affected by it.

size frequency Speed of onset duration areal extent

(e.g., the volume of flood water or volume of land (e.g., how often on average do events of given size recur). (e.g., earthquakes approach slowly). (e.g., earthquakes approach slowly). approach approach suddenly suddenly while while droughts droughts

(e.g., landslides occur over small areas; droughts over large areas).

Are They 'Natural' Hazards?

When describing the functional nature of natural hazards it was stressed that hazards are 'human creations'. Nevertheless, the discussion thus far shows that the causal agents of 'natural' hazards are both natural and human. This, then, raises doubts over the appropriateness of the term 'natural hazard' as a label tor the phenomena we are interested in. The hazards we are interested in ('natural hazards') are in part human creations, and that it is in some ways misleading to label them 'natural' hazards. On the other hand, it would be equally misleading to label them 'social' hazards because they are in part created by natural events. Thus, a natural hazard that leads to a natural disaster when an extreme natural event occurs is not usefully labeled a 'social hazard' or 'social disaster'. To do so would confuse it with such 'social' disasters as the alcohol induced vehicular accidents. The Venn diagrams in Figures 2 and 3 and the systems diagrams in Figures 6 and 7 usefully stress the interactive nature of the hazards and disasters we are interested in. Calling them 'natural hazards' and 'natural disasters' is a convenient short-hand for classifying the various types of hazards and disasters caused (in part) by extreme natural events. This in turn enables us to refer to the different types of hazards by the principal causal agent in nature- flood, earthquake, hurricane, etc. If the 'social' causal agent was used as the means for labeling these sorts of hazards, the resulting classification would be very confusing, if not meaningless.

Reducing Natural Hazards and Losses

Acting in ways that reduce the natural hazard in a community lessens the scale of disaster when an extreme event occurs. In other words, reducing the hazard lessens the potential for losses. (Equivalent terms to the word 'reduction' used in the literature on natural hazards are 'amelioration' and 'mitigation'.) There are numerous actions (measures or adjustments or coping mechanisms) that people can take to either individually or collectively reduce losses from natural events. Not all measures taken, however, reduce the natural hazard. The reasons for this are given in the sections below. The range of measures that can be taken to reduce losses varies depending on the type of event and the cultural group in question. A study in Sri Lanka uncovered 264 different kinds of actions people take collectively to reduce the flood problem (Burton, Kates, and White, 197S, 40). In New Zealand, the list would not reach 50 (Ericksen, 1971; 1976b; 1986). These differences in part reflect the differences in types of hazard, but are mostly due to the character of the societies in question. Modern technological or industrial societies (e.g., United States of America and New Zealand) employ actions that: emphasize the control of nature; are inflexible and hard to change once the approach is
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established; are capital intensive in their requirements (like flood control works); involve complex governmental structures to implement them; and tend to be fairly uniform in application cover large areas (White, ed., 1974; Burton, et al., 1978). Because we are dealing with basic concepts it would not help to detail the many actions here (See Burton, et al., 1978). More useful is a classification of potential actions into three broad approaches: altering actual losses, altering the natural event, and altering human use in hazardous areas (Table 2). An indication of their influence on the hazard system appears in Figure 7

Altering Losses
A major approach to dealing with the actual effects of disasters is to relieve losses after they have occurred. This can be done through public relief and rehabilitation of an area. For example, government grants and public donations provide cash for people who have lost essential possessions. The declaration of a disaster by authority of the Civil Defence Act in New Zealand, for example, enables the personnel, organizations, and materials of central, regional and local government agencies to be used to help local communities to rebuild essential services, like sewerage and water supplies, after a disaster has struck. The main approach for dealing with the potential losses from an individuals perspective is through insurance taken out in anticipation of such losses. People pay premiums to insurance companies in recognition of the chance that they may be affected by a future disaster. These measures obviously relieve the burden of loss for individuals affected by a disaster. They spread the costs in time and space beyond affected individuals onto others in the wider community, and from the affected to community to the nation at large. However, the money and material that flows into an area is
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generally used to reinstate property and people in the same areas affected by the disaster. These actions by themselves do nothing to reduce the hazard and, consequently, do nothing to reduce losses from future events.

Altering Natural Events

A popular approach to dealing with hazards, or the potential effects of disasters, is to try and alter or otherwise contain or prevent the natural event. For example, barriers can be built to contain floods within river channels, divert avalanches away from villages, or prevent storm surges encroaching beyond sand-dunes. Clouds have been seeded to induce rain and break droughts or to dissipate the energy of a hurricane, although such attempts are more experimental than practical. Attempts to release tectonic strain and therefore prevent severe earthquakes have been made in USA, The main problem with this approach is that the measures are far from reliable. For example, embankments (stop-banks) in New Zealand may prevent floods of moderate size and frequency, but sooner or later they are breached and/or overtopped when a major flood occurs, as at Paeroa, 1981; Mataura 1978; Opotiki, 1964; Whakatane 2004, Manawatu 2004; and many other places. In the meantime, stopbanks encourage intensification of human settlement in the path of the eventual flood. This problem is illustrated in Figure 8 for the area in Palmerston North affected by flooding from the Mangaone Stream. The cross-section through Mangaone Stream shows the way in which stop-banks have enlarged and the stream artificially deepened in response to each major flood starting in the 192O's. Thus, as for post-disaster relief, pre-disaster measures that try to modify the cause or effects of a natural event may reduce some losses from smaller natural events, yet actually increase the natural hazard and with it disaster potential with respect lo larger more rare events.

EVOLUTION OF PROTECTION FROM MANGAONE STREAM Stopbanks Channel enlargement

1978 1960s 1920s 1930s 1941 1945 1947 1953 1960s 1976 1978 19B0's

1945 1930s 1920s

Natural condition (estimated) Protection Flooding Proposed protection Flooding Flooding Protection Flooding Protection Assumed growth will reduce capacity of existing protection

Fig. 8. The evolution of channel enlargement and raising of stop banks lo protect first rural and then urban land uses from Mangaone Streams, Palmerston North (Ericksen, 1986

Altering Human Uses

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Since natural disasters are largely human creations, the most effective way to reduce losses and the hazard is through altering human use of resources in areas at risk from extreme natural events. The main approach for doing this is land use planning and management and emergency preparedness. Zoning ordinances and building codes are the main measures available for planning and managing land uses. They can be applied to areas at risk from natural events. To plan land uses so that they are sensitive to the realities of nature, it is necessary to clearly identify and map areas at risk from natural events. The extent of hazard can be assessed by relating various sorts of land uses to the risks. For example, an area exposed to moderate floods may be suitable for parklands or even flood-proofed (water tight) industrial buildings, but it would seem most unsuited for dense housing where large numbers of people would be at risk. Before opening new areas for agriculture it would be essential to establish, from past records, the fluctuations in rainfall so that the type or types of farming chosen will not be exposed to the threat of drought on the one hand or floods on the other. Planners of new settlement along the front-range of mountains must be mindful of the paths of landslides and/or avalanches. These various planning measures are long-term in their application. That is, they need advanced planning and once applied they operate over time to guide new developments into less hazardous forms. Emergency actions can also be prepared for well in advance of actual disasters. They are, however, short-term in application. They include such things as evacuation of people and property from the hazard zone. To be effective they need an appropriate forecasting system to warn people of the on-set of the event and its likely consequences. Altering human uses in hazardous areas is the most effective way of reducing both losses from natural events and the natural hazard. Unfortunately, this approach to the problem appears to be least applied. The reasons for this are many and complex. Many local politicians see the production of hazard maps and policies for land use management as affecting growth and development and thereby rateable income, i.e., property taxes. Property owners and developers often feel these measures will affect their property values and profits. However, research in the United States on floods and earthquakes and in New Zealand on floods shows that disclosure of the hazard does not significantly influence property values (Montz, 1994). However, the fear many local councillors and property owners have that disclosure will affect growth and development by adversely impacting property values, means that hazard and mitigation information that is important for altering human uses in hazard-prone areas is not always made very public by local governments. This is in spite of the fact that legislation required them to do so (Ericksen, 1986; Ericksen, Berke, Crawford, and Dixon, 2003).

Integrated Approach
For most problems the solutions to them are often complex. It is likely that the most effective approach to reducing both losses and hazards from extreme natural events will require some combination of measures from the three approaches described above. That is, it will require an integratede and unified approach. For example, to reduce losses to existing flood-prone property, stopbanks (embankments) would be useful. New development should, however, be directed away from the more hazardous locations or other preparedness measures should be taken, like land and/or building elevation and flood-proofing of buildings. When these measures fail, evacuation, relief and rehabilitation, and insurance, if available, should be available to help people bear the losses.

Flood Hazard Mitigation

In New Zealand, a wide range of legislation evolved over the years that enabled all of the measures noted above to be implemented, particularly with regard to flood hazard. However, until the 1990s, the pattern of response was highly biased towards altering losses (post-disaster relief and rehabilitation) and altering floods events (soil erosion and flood control works) (Ericksen, 1986). In other words, only minimal attention was given to altering uses in flood-prone areas through land use management and related preparedness measures. This pattern of response for flood hazard is summarised in Figure 9. Since the
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Resource Management Act of 1991, the amount of flood control has lessened, primarily because central government stopped subsidizing local government for their development. Nevertheless, local government has still been slow to adopt integrated community preparedness programmes, as flooding in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in 2004 clearly shows.

ADJUSTMENTS FOR REDUCTING FLOOD LOSSES

ADJUST FLOODS TO PEOPLE MODIFY FLOOD CAUSE AND EFFECT

ADJUST PEOPLE TO FLOODS MODIFY FLOOD-LOSS

ADJUST FLOOD LOSSES MODIFY POTENTIALFLOODLOSS EFFECTS

Watershed Treatment

Zoning Ordinances

Flood Insurance

Channel Improvements

Sub-division Regulations

Subsidies & Public Relief

Stopbanking and Floodwalls Dams and Reservoirs

Building Codes

Public Acquisition

Flood Forecasting

Emergency Preparedness

PUBLIC INFORMATION AND EDUCATION MEASURES USED IN NEW ZEALAND STRONG ADOPTION MODERATE ADOPTION WEAK ADOPTION

Fig 9. Pattern of flood adjustments and the extend adopted in New Zealand. The many measures for modifying loss potentials are weekly adopted relative to those that modify the flood event and flood losses (Ericksen, 1971a; updated 1986).

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FLOOD-LOSSES AND PROTECTION COSTS 1950 - 1985

Fig 10. Trends in flood protection costs and insured losses, 1953 1980. The fall in protection costs in the 1970s due to economic recession and diversion of funds to irrigation works (Ericksen 1986)

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Fig 11. Self-perpetuating protecting of floodplain settlement: a). natural conditions supporting rough grazing in swampy land adjacent to a channel with 5 year flood capacity; b) 15 year flood protection of intensive farmlands; c) 50 year projection of urbanizing floodplain which when flooded leads to; d) 100 year protection. The bags of money indicate the increased actual and/or potential cost of relief and rehabilitation as land use intensifies. Bottom of diagram shows settlement guided over time by judicious land use management measures

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Why this pattern?

Basically, flood losses are generally seen as problems caused by nature. The best solution is seen as controlling the natural event. After setting up catchment boards in the 1940's, large amounts of public money was spent on flood control works through the central government scheme of subsidies. The costs for this approach escalated steadily in succeeding decades. By the 1980's almost all of the 100 flood-prone communities with populations in excess of 1,000 people had "flood protection". Yet in spite of the increasing expenditure on flood control works, flood losses continued to rise. This protection cost - flood loss trend appears in the graphs in Figure 10. The cost of protection flattened in the 1970's due to diversion of money from flood control to publicly funded irrigation works and to an economic recession. As flood disasters continued to occur in spite of large scale efforts at flood protection, increasing amounts of public money was being spent on relief and rehabilitation, which was reinvested in the same flood-prone areas. The reason for this was the classical case of the solutions becoming the problem. In essence, stopbanking and channelisation are self-perpetuating. As land use in flood-prone communities intensifies behind ever larger protection works, the disaster potential grows from flood events larger than those for which the flood control works were designed. Sooner or later protection is overtopped and/or breached. While individuals and communities affected by floods have their losses reduced through relief and rehabilitation, the cost to the nation as a whole escalates. While many benefits are gained in the process of floodplain occupation, the cost of doing so lies in infrequent flood disasters. The idea of creating a self perpetuating system is illustrated schematically in Figure 11.

The Consequence
While many officials in regional catchment boards did try to encourage officials in local councils to use land use management as a means for reducing flood hazard, the latter tended to see the catchment boards as the solvers of their flood problems. Besides, community officials did not wish to impede growth and development in their areas by pushing for land use controls. It is estimated that between 1968 and 1984, 10 major floods, including regional floods, caused about $1.2 billion worth of damages. By 1984, the National Water and Soil Conservation Authority had spent about $1 billion on soil erosion and flood control works through its catchment boards in local areas. Getting out of this dilemma requires flood-prone communities to deal with the problem themselves. That is, they have to internalise their costs of locating in flood-prone areas, rather than externalise them to the nation as a whole. This means becoming less reliant on nationally subsidised protection and relief and more reliant on altering human uses on the floodplain within their own community. This is done by encouraging people wanting to develop on flood-prone land to do so in ways that are compatible with the realities of periodic, but potentially devastating, flood events. In New Zealand, central government since 1984 has resolved to reduce public subsidies on public works, like flood control, and to devolve responsibility for local problems away from central government to local communities for most matters. This approach may bring sufficient pressure on local authorities to more seriously implement the land use management and community preparedness measures that legislation has for decades enabled them to do.

Resource Management Act 1991

In this respect, the Resource Management Act 1991 is clear. Section 2 of the Act defines the meaning of "natural hazard" as any atmospheric or earth or water related occurrence (including earthquake, tsunami, erosion, volcanic and geothermal activity, landslip, subsidence, sedimentation, wind, drought, fire, or flooding) the action of which adversely affects or may adversely affect human life, property, or other aspects of the environment...
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The meaning of "effect" is described in Section 3, and includes: positive or adverse effects; temporary or permanent effects; past, present, or future effects; cumulative effects: potential high probability effects; and potential low probability, but high potential impact effects. Section 31 describes the functions of territorial authorities (regional and local councils) as including: (a) The establishment, implementation, and review of objectives, policies, and methods to achieve integrated management of the effects of the use, development, and protection of land and associated natural and physical resources of the district; (b) The control of any actual or potential effects of the use, development, or protection of land, including the implementation ol rules for the avoidance or mitigation of natural hazards... (c) The control of subdivision of land... (e) The control of any actual or potential effects of activities in relation to the surface water in rivers and lakes. Section 35 requires local councils to gather information, monitor, and keep records needed for effectively carrying out these and other functions under the Act. This includes keeping records on natural hazards (S35.5J).

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APPENDIX 1

GLOSSARY
Human use: The use made by people of an area. Use can be defined in many ways. For example, land uses such as residential, industrial, recreational, commercial, farming and so on. The complex natural forces that occur in a given area. For example, the climatic and geomorphic processes that give rise to winds, rains, slopes, and rivers. Those natural events that vary significantly from normal conditions. For example, very high or very low rainfalls cause floods and droughts. The potential consequence of an extreme natural event on human use of a given area. For example, the possibility that a flood could inundate part of a city, or, thai city development could encroach or is encroaching into areas prone to flooding. A natural hazard is the perceived interaction between a potential extreme natural event and human use (actual or potential) of a given area, including what people do to reduce the consequences of extreme natural events. The actual consequence (or impact) of an extreme natural event on human use of a given area. For example, when a flood inundates part of a city or farmland. Natural disaster: The size of an extreme event, such as a deep flood, very strong earthquake or very large landslide. The more rare the event the larger its magnitude. Magnitude: The expected occurrence of future extreme events. Future events are estimated from the record of past experiences of events. Very large events are very rare, that is, they have low frequency or likelihood of occurrence. To appease, to alleviate, to reduce in severity, in the context of natural hazards, to reduce the hazard and thereby the losses should an extreme event occur. The measures or actions or coping strategies taken to reduce the hazard and/or losses. These may be taken by individuals (insurance, floodproofing a house) or collectively (emergency preparedness, flood control works).

Natural events:

Extreme natural events: Natural hazards:

Frequency:

Mitigation:

Adjustments

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REFERENCES CITED
Burton, I., and Kates, R.W., 1964: The perception of natural hazards in resource management. Natural Resources Journal, 3 (3), 412-441. Burton, I., Kates, R.W., and White, G.F., 1978: Environment as Hazard. New York: Oxford University Press. Ericksen, N.J., 1971: Human adjustment to floods, N.Z. Geographer, 27,105-129. Ericksen, N.J., 1976b: The role of the planner in flood plain management: an overview, Town Planning Quarterly, 43, 13-25. Ericksen, N.J., 1986: Creating Flood Disasters? Wellington: NWASCA Miscellaneous Publication No. 77. Ericksen, N. J., 1986: Forecasting for whom and what? In D. I. Smith and J.W. Handmer (eds), Flood Warning in Australia. Canberra: Centre for Resources and Environmental Studies, 123-132. Ericksen, N.J., 1988: Integrating insurance and relief into unified floodplain management, Proceedings of Insurance and Relief in Floodplain Management Conference, 24-26 February 1998. Canberra: Australian National University, Centre for Resources and Environmental Studies. Ericksen, N.J., 1988: Natural Hazards: Basic Concepts: Hamilton: Department of Geography, University of Waikato. (Booklet prepared for Secondary School Geography Series -- Form 5. Ericksen, N.J., 1991: Flood Hazard Mitigation: Concepts and Problems. Hamilton: Centre for Environmental and Resource Studies (Booklet for a Training Course 132: Civil Defence Planning for the National Civil Defence School, 4-8 November 1991.) Ericksen, N., Berke, P., and Dixon, J., 2000: Managing Natural Hazards under the Resource Management Act, in A. Memon and H. Perkins (eds), Environmental Planning and Management in New Zealand. Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 123-132. Kates, R.W., 1970: Natural Hazards in Human Ecoloqical Perspective: Hypotheses and Models. Toronto: University of Toronto, Natural Hazards Research, Working Paper No. 14. Reprinted in Economic Geography, 1971. Haylock, H.J. and Ericksen, N.J., 2000: From state dependency to self-reliance: agricultural drought policies and practices in New Zealand. In D.A. Wlhite (ed.), Drought: A Global Assessment: Vol 2, Natural Hazards and Disasters Series, London: Routledge, 105-114. May, P., Burby, R., and Ericksen N., (et al.), 1996: Environmental Management and Governance: Intergovernmental Approaches to Hazards and Sustainability. London and New York, Routledge. White, G.F., 1945: Human Adjustment to Floods: A Geographical Perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago, Department of Geography, Research Paper No. 29. White, G.F. (ed.), 1974: Natural Hazards: Local, National, and Global. New York: Oxford University Press

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Acknowledgement
This paper is an update of previous versions used in several different contexts, such as: NZ National Civil Defence School, Course 132: Civil Defence Planning; Course 222: Natural Hazards, University of Waikato, Department of Geography; and Natural Hazards and Planning, Guide for Teachers of Secondary School Geography - Form 5.

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