Hazard

A hazard is a potential source of harm. Substances, events, or

circumstances can constitute hazards when their nature would allow them,
even just theoretically, to cause damage to health, life, property, or any
other interest of value. The probability of that harm being realized in a
specific incident, combined with the magnitude of potential harm, make up
its risk, a term often used synonymously in colloquial speech.
Hazards can be classified in several ways. They can be classified as
natural, anthropogenic, technological, or any combination therefore, such
as in the case of the natural phenomenon of wildfire becoming more
common due to human-made climate change or more harmful due to
changes in building practices. A common theme across many forms of
hazards is the presence of stored energy that, when released, can cause
damage. Stored energy can occur in many forms: chemical, mechanical,
thermal, radioactive, electrical, etc. Situations can also be hazardous, as
for example confined or limited egress spaces, oxygen-depleted
atmospheres, awkward positions, repetitive motions, low-hanging or
protruding objects, etc. They may also be classified as health or safety
hazards, by the populations that may be affected, and the severity of the
associated risk. In most cases a hazard may affect a range of targets, and
have little or no effect on others.
Identification of hazards assumes that the potential targets are defined, and
is the first step in performing a risk assessment.
Natural hazards may be defined as "extreme events that originate in the
biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere or atmosphere"[3] or "a potential threat to
humans and their welfare"[1] which include earthquake, landslide, hurricane and
tsunamis. Technological and man made hazards include explosions, release of
toxic materials, episodes of severe contamination, structural collapses, and
transportation, construction and manufacturing accidents etc. A distinction can
also be made between rapid onset natural hazards, technological hazards and
social hazards which are described as being of sudden occurrence and relatively
short duration, and the consequences of longer term environmental degradation
such as desertification and drought, [4].[citation needed]
In defining hazard Keith Smith argues that what may be defined as hazard is only
a hazard if there is the presence of humans to make it a hazard and that it is
otherwise merely an event of interest. In this sense the environmental conditions
we may consider hostile or hazardous can be seen as neutral in that it is our
perception, human location and actions which identify resources and hazards
within the range of natural events. In this regard human sensitivity to
environmental hazards is a combination of both physical exposure (natural and/or
technological events at a location related to their statistical variability) and human
vulnerability (in regard to social and economic tolerance of the same location).[1]

Smith states that natural hazards are best seen in an ecological framework in
order to distinguish between natural events as natural hazards. He says "natural
hazards, therefore, result from the conflict of geophysical processes with people
and they lie at the interface what has been called the natural events system and
the human interface system." He says that "this interpretation of natural hazards
gives humans a central role. Firstly through location, because it is only when
people and their possessions get in the way of natural processes that hazard
exists."