Assignment Instructions
For the final paper, students in the course are asked to choose a specific hazard that is of most interest, identify a specific community (at the city or county level) that has experienced a significant disruption (major emergency or disaster) resulting from the chosen hazard, and then write a short case study assessing some key aspect of the emergency or disaster incident: how well the community prepares for the risks associated with the hazard, how the community responded to the incident, how the recovery process proceeded, or something similar.
I encourage you to pick a hazard and assessment aspect aligned with your own personal interests for this assignment. However, if you are having a hard time identifying one that interests you, I suggest you might consider choosing from the list below of hazards and associated incidents. This is just an illustrative list you can choose whatever is of most interest, of course.
Hazard: Hurricane. Possible disaster incidents as illustrations: Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Dorian, etc.
Hazard: Wildfire. Possible disaster incidents as illustrations: numerous California wildfire disasters over the past several years
Hazard: Extreme Heat. Not a defined disaster, but high level of diffuse harms; consider a city such as Phoenix, AZ and the adverse public effects during prolonged high temperatures
Hazard: Hurricane. Possible disaster incident as illustration: numerous floods in the Midwest in 2019 (e.g. floods along the Mississippi, Missouri and Arkansas rivers)
Please choose Hurricane Sandy in New York City!!!
To complete the assignment, you should follow these specific guidelines:
Write a 2,000 word discussion paper applying key concepts from the course to your case study evaluation. You are required to use a minimum of 8 sources (including course materials) to support your case study
In providing your case study assessment, you can Organize your paper with the following sections and be sure to answer all questions in each section:
1) Incident summary with specific discussion of the underlying hazard itself
What is the hazard? What are its characteristics?
Which community does it influence?
What tangible or intangible, direct or indirect effects does it have on the community?
2) Contributing factors to the incident being examined
What hazard-specific human and physical factors that contribute to the occurrence of the hazard?
Which social groups or community members are most vulnerable to the hazard?
Which economic, social, political, environment, geographic factors increase the communitys vulnerability (or disaster risks in general) to the hazard?
3) Assessment of any relevant DRR policies and practices
What is the local governments preparedness situation to this hazard? What does the local government do to prepare the community for the hazard? Does it send out warning in time? Does it have a plan in place?
What is the protection strategy to reduce disaster risks? Does the local government use any structural measure to reduce the hazard risks? If yes, which specific structural measures do local government take?
What is the mitigation strategy to reduce disaster risks? Has the local government used the financial measures to reduce the disaster risk? If yes, which specific financial measures does local government take?
What is the adaptation strategy to reduce disaster risks? Does the local government use any regulatory measure to reduce the hazard risks? If yes, which specific adaptation measures does local government take?
4) Identification of strategies for future disaster risk reduction
Based on the readings for this class, what advice would you give to this community to further reduce their risks to the specific hazard?
Specifically, what other disaster risk management measures could be adopted to further reduce the disaster risks?
What might be the challenges for the community to implement your proposed disaster risk management measure?
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