Week 3 Assignment – Risk, vulnerability, and lessons learned

Dates: February 21 to 28 – Complete discussion assignment by Feb 28 by 11:59 PM

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Assignment #1

You will do your own research to find out what happened to people during your case study disaster and why. Find your own content by conducting research (example sources – news articles, government websites, etc). A good place to start is through Google search.

1. Find 3 to 5 resources describing the human impacts from your disaster.
2. Create a blog post in your Hazard Topic Group listing them all (give URL or information about where to find them).
3. Pick your favorite and describe briefly why you liked this resource, whether you think it is accurate, or contains misinformation or flaws (3 to 5 sentences).
4. Read through your classmates’ posts, pick one of their resources, read it, and then comment on your original post describing what you learned from it that you can use for your own case study (at least 3 sentences).
5. You can choose any hazard topic for your post if there are no others in your topic group.

Stop here for Week 3

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Week 4 – Case Study 1 Report – tie it all together in a report that is based on your work over the past 3 weeks.

Dates: February 28 to March 6

Turn in your report March 6 at 11:59 PM – Upload report to Canvas

Write a 4 to 5 page paper (1.5 line spacing, 12 point font, minimum 4 pages, maximum 5, not including figures, tables, or references) summarizing your findings over the past 3 weeks. Draw heavily from the work you have already completed. Your paper should include the following:

1. Introduce the disaster event -use your Week 1 assignment and make   improvements (if needed) based on your Week 1 assignment grade. Include a map figure showing the location of the disaster (continent, country, region) with figure caption explaining the map.
2. Describe the basic science of the event – use your Week 1 assignment and make improvements (if needed) based on your Week 1 grade. Include at least one figure that describes the science (e.g., how faults work, how a landslide works, etc), with figure caption included describing the parts of your figure.
3. Describe monitoring, mitigation, and risk – use your Week 2 assignment and make improvements (if needed) based on your Week 2 grade. Include a figure that describes these efforts (e.g., a type of monitoring instrument used, photos of levees, or earthquake retrofitting, or evacuation maps), with figure caption included describing the parts of your figure.
4. Describe the lessons learned   in the aftermath of your case study disaster. Use your Week 3 assignment and make improvements (if needed) based on your grade. Include a discussion based on the   following points:

a. Have people rebuilt in disaster-prone areas in the meantime, or has the land been used for for something less risky?

b. Does the region have new monitoring/mitigation measures in place?

c. Are people better prepared now than in the past?

5. Summarize your findings by making one recommendation for how the population could improve their readiness in case a similar disaster happens again in the near future.