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Science U.S. natural disasters cause different degrees of suffering
Science U.S. natural disasters cause different degrees of suffering | U.S. natural disasters cause different degrees of suffering |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Friday, 22 February 2008 | |
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The paper entitled “Temporal and spatial changes in social vulnerability to natural hazards” is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it, the two researchers, Susan L. Cutter and Christina Finch, from the USC’s Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute, Department of Geography, state that different areas in the United States suffer more from natural disasters than other areas. This difference in suffering and vulnerability is based primarily on where the poor, elderly, and immigrants live and where densely populated areas exist. For instance, California and Texas are more vulnerable than other states because both states are on the border with Mexico—consequently, have low-income immigrant populations that are hit the hardest when natural disasters occur. In other instances, large metropolitan areas have higher risk from natural disasters simply due to their higher population densities over other lower-populated areas. They state that New York City (New York) and San Francisco (California) are two of the cities with the highest risk of suffering and vulnerability to injury, death, and infrastructural damage and loss. In the abstract to their paper, Cutter and Finch state that in the last forty years the landscape of the United States has changed with respect to hazards—calling it a landscape hazard, or a “hazardscape.” Additional information on "hazardscape" and how it effects the country and various locations within the country follow. Please read on.
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