Environmental Hazards and Society.

Catalog description

Traditional views of hazards focus on the processes associated with natural or technological systems. But societal choices shape the occurrence and differential impact of hazard events. This course focuses on the intersection between physical and social systems that create hazards. We consider the development of various theoretical understandings of hazards; individual and societal responses to hazards; the history of U.S. disaster response; how socio-economic and demographic factors shape differential hazard and disaster impacts, and approaches to hazard vulnerability assessment.