Geography/Geology 170
Disasters
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EXAM 1 EXAM 3
EXAM 2 FINAL EXAM

EXAM 1

INTRODUCTION

  1. What is a disaster, a natural hazard, and a natural disaster?
  2. Who or what is responsible for a natural process becoming a hazard?
  3. How and why does an increase in population affect vulnerability to hazards?
  4. How and why does economic growth affect vulnerability to hazards?
  5. How and why do aspects of culture and psychology affect the vulnerability to hazards?
  6. How and why does the effect of hazards tend to vary by economic class?
  7. How does the frequency and magnitude of a hazard affect the extent of impact?
  8. What is a beneficial impact of a hazard?
  9. What is the relationship between loss of life, property loss, and catastrophe?
  10. How do area affected, speed, magnitude and warning affect the catastrophe potential of a hazard?
  11. What is risk and how do we calculate risk?
  12. How does personal feelings, culture, and knowledge affect our risk perception?
  13. How and why are a knowledge of location, probability of occurrence, precursor events, prediction and warning important to proper warning and or prediction of possible disasters?
  14. What is the difference between direct and indirect effects?
  15. What are the characteristics of the emergency, restoration, reconstruction I and reconstruction II phases of response and recovery?
  16. How is the reactive response different from the anticipatory response?
  17. What is the difference between structural and non-structural responses?
  18. How do education, land use planning, building codes, artificial control, disaster preparedness, warning and evacuation plans, and insurance serve as anticipatory responses to hazards?

2004 INDONESIAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI   

    Narrative of disaster
  1. Where and when did the earthquake and tsunami happen?
  2. What were the general effects of the tsunami?
  3. How long did it take?
  4. How many people were affected?

    Plate Tectonics of Divergent and Convergent Boundaries

  1. What are the internal layers of the earth and what are their primary characteristics?
  2. What is the mantle, how does it interact with the lithosphere and why does it cause plate movement?
  3. What is the composition of the oceanic crust, continental crust and the lithosphere and what is the relationship to plate tectonics
  4. How do divergent plate boundaries function and what are their primary features?
  5. How do plate movement, stress, earthquakes, and volcanism relate to a divergent plate boundary?
  6. How do convergent plate boundaries function and what are their primary features?
  7. How do plate movement, stress, earthquakes, and volcanism relate to a convergent plate boundary?
  8. What is the relationship between plate boundaries and the tsunami?

    Why do earthquakes occur?

  1. What are the major causes of earthquakes?
  2. What is the structure of a fault and how is it related to rock movement?
  3. What are the three types of stress and how do they affect rock?
  4. What are the three types of strain shown by rock and why do they occur?
  5. What is elastic rebound theory and how does it explain earthquakes?
  6. What are p-waves, s-waves, love-waves, and rayleigh waves and how does each deform rock?
    7.
  7. How and why do earthquake magnitude, distance from the earthquake, local geology, and the quality of a building affect earthquake intensity?
  8. How does seismic wave amplitude, ground motion and the energy released vary with Richter magnitude?
  9. How and why do rock strength, rupture surface area, and displacement affect moment magnitude?
  10. What is the difference between foreshocks, main shocks and aftershocks?
  11. How and why do earthquakes cause acceleration?
  12. How and why do earthquakes cause structures to twist?
  13. How do acceleration, twisting and the duration of an earthquake affect rock and human structures?
  14. How and why does local geology affect shaking?
  15. How and why do earthquakes cause subsidence or uplift and what are the effects?
  16. What is liquefaction, how and why does it occur and what is the effect on the surface?

    Waves, Beaches and Why do tsunamis occur?

  1. What are the major causes of tsunamis?
  2. How and why did an earthquake on a convergent plate boundary cause a tsunami?
  3. What are the characteristics and anatomy of a tsunami?
  4. How does the magnitude of the earthquake, the travel distance and the pre-existing ocean level affect the magnitude of the tsunami?
  5. What are the characteristics and anatomy of a common wind-driven wave and how do they change when they reach shallow water?
  6. What is the relationship between the size of a wave and its energy?
  7. How and why does wave refraction occur?
  8. How would wave refraction and water depth affect the impact of a tsunami on a coastline?
  9. What governs inundation and run-up by a tsunami?
  10. What controls the force of impact of a tsunami on a coastal structure?
  11. Where and why does erosion occur during a tsunami and what are the effects?
  12. Where and why does deposition occur during a tsunami and what are the effects?
  13. What is the effect of coastal flooding?

    Anticipatory Response

  1. How is the reactive response different from the anticipatory response?

  2. What is the difference between structural and non-structural responses?

  3. What are anticipatory responses?

  4. How does research, education, and public response interact with hazards and disasters?

  5. How does controlling development and land use affect the risk and the magnitude of a disaster?

  6. Is land use control an effective tool with earthquakes and tsunamis?

  7. How are building codes and structural reinforcement important to protecting from disasters?

  8. Are building codes written to protect lives in earthquake prone areas of the US?

  9. What are the advantages and disadvantages of artificial control for a hazard?

  10. Are artificial controls possible with earthquakes and tsunamis?

  11. What are the advantages and issues associated with disaster preparedness?

  12. How can warning systems help you when you only have a short period of time?

  13. How can a warning system help when you have a longer period of time?

  14. What are the issues associated with evacuation?

  15. What are the issues with insurance?

  16. Is relief always a good thing?

 

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EXAM 2    

1980 MT. ST. HELENS ERUPTION   

  1. What happened in the period before, after and during the Mt. St. Helens eruption?
  2. How and why do location, mineralogy, temperature, viscosity, and the presence of water and gas control eruptions and what is the effect of each?
  3. How and why do effusive and explosive eruptions occur?
  4. Why do some volcanoes always experience effusive eruptions while other alternate between effusive and explosive eruptions?
  5. What kind of location, mineralogy, temperature, viscosity, eruptions and eruptions products are produced by shield and composite volcanoes?
  6. What are the reasons for and the effects of gas emissions, pyroclastic flows and falls, blasts and lava flows?
  7. What are the reasons for and the effects of lahars, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and climatic change associated with volcanoes?
  8. How and why do we classify volcanic activity?
  9. What precursors indicate a volcanic eruption and why?
  10. How do humans respond to earthquakes in terms of non-structural approaches?
  11. What are the structural approaches to volcanoes and volcanic eruptions?
  12. Essay question: Humans should seek to block modify or divert lava flows to protect human structures. Discuss using examples from class.
  13. Essay question: The government should permanently evacuate all vulnerable areas around active volcanoes. Discuss using examples from class.
  14. Essay question: I am immune to loss from volcanic eruption. Discuss using information from class.
    15.

LA CONCHITA LANDSLIDE AND DEBRIS FLOW

  1. Why did the La Conchita landslide occur?

  2. What is the relationship between slope stability (FS - factor of safety), driving force (DF), and resisting force (RF)?

  3. What is the relationship between slope stability (FS), RF, weight, slope, normal stress, friction and cohesion?

  4. What is the relationship between slope stability, DF, weight, and slope angle?

  5. What are the different types of friction and how do they affect slope stability?

  6. How and why does friction affect the angle of repose (slope angle)?

  7. How does rock strength affect slope angle?

  8. How does soil strength affect the angle of repose?

  9. How and why do rock and soil strength, structure, weathering, water, and vegetation affect the resistance of slopes?

  10. How and why do earthquakes, regional tilting, removal of underlying or lateral support, addition of mass and human actions affect the driving forces that act on slopes?

  11. What characteristics are used for classification of mass movement?
  12. How does one distinguish between falls, slides and flows?
  13. How and why does a rotational slide occur?
  14. What features are associated with a rotational slide?
  15. What is the difference between granular and slurry flows?
  16. How and why does a debris flow occur?
  17. What features are associated with a debris flow?
  18. What information do you need to recognize a hazard?
  19. What are the precursors to mass movement?
  20. Describe and explain the non-structural approaches to mitigating mass movements.
  21. Describe and explain the structural approaches to mitigating mass movements.
  22. How and why is this disaster different from the Indonesian Tsunami and from Mt. St. Helens?

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EXAM 3    

1993 MISSISSIPPI RIVER FLOOD

  1. How and why did weather and other natural factors helped create the 1993 Mississippi River flood?
  2. What human factors helped create the 1993 Mississippi River flood?
  3. What are the evaporation, transpiration, precipitation, interception, stemflow, infiltration, soil water, groundwater, throughflow, surface storage, overland flow, stream flow, and the hydrologic cycle, why and how do these parts link together, and how does water move through the cycle?
  4. What is a drainage basin (watershed) and how is it distinguished from other basins?
  5. How are basin inputs (water, energy, gravity, land shape, etc) and basin outputs (water, sediment, energy, land shape, etc) affected by climate, vegetation, basin size, elevation, shapes, composition, structure, history, internal adjustments, and humans?
  6. What is a hydrograph, lag time, rising limb, falling limb, peak discharge and how are these characteristics affected by rainfall and runoff?  

  7. What is baseflow and how is it related to groundwater and infiltration?

  8. How and why do base flow, throughflow, overland flow, and channel flow contribute to a hydrograph?

  9. How and why do precipitation total, precipitation intensity, soil moisture, season, slope, soil texture, vegetation cover, and soil condition affect infiltration?

  10. How and why does infiltration affect overland flow, lag time, peak discharge, and flooding?  
  11. How and why does infiltration affect the formation of rills and gullies?
  12. How and why does land use and infiltration affect lag time, peak discharge and flooding?  

  13. How and why do depth, width cross-sectional area, wetted perimeter, and stream gradient describe channel geometry?

  14. How and why do slope, roughness and channel shape affect stream velocity?

  15. How and why does velocity vary within channels of different sizes, cross-sections and shapes?

  16. What is stream discharge and how is it related to channel size and velocity?

  17. What are abrasion, solution, and hydraulic action and how do streams use them to erode rock and sediment?

  18. What is competence and how is it controlled by velocity?

  19. What is capacity and how is controlled by discharge?

  20. How do capacity and competence affect erosion, deposition and sediment load?

  21. What are dissolved load, suspended load and bedload, why do they occur and how are they distributed in a stream?

  22. How and why does a stream channel cross-section and other characteristics (like velocity, discharge, capacity, competence, change from the beginning to the end of a flood?

  23. How and why does stream erosion create waterfalls and v-shaped valleys?

  24. How is flooding different in v-shaped valleys?

  25. What are channel bars, floodplains, natural levees, and backswamps and why do they form in meandering stream environments?

  26. How and why do meandering streams create floodplains, natural levees, and backswamps?

  27. How and why do meandering streams create meanders, point bars, cut-off meanders, oxbow lakes and meander scars?

  28. How is flooding different on a meandering stream?

  29. What is the flood wave and how does it change downstream?
  30. What are upstream and downstream floods and how do they relate to the type of storm and to the floodwave?
  31. How does climatic variation, precipitation, timing, and infiltration influence the magnitude of flooding?
  32. What hazards do floods present to people?
  33. How and why does magnitude vary with flood frequency?
  34. How and why does the magnitude and frequency of flooding affect the area of flooding?
  35. How do we use recurrence interval to forecast flooding?
  36. How do we use modeling to forecast and predict flooding?
  37. What is paleoflood analysis and how do we use it to determine the magnitude and frequency of floods?
  38. What is the main philosophy and the actual physical approaches behinds the following general areas of flood control: channelization (including artificial levees), dams and retention ponds, drainage diversions, flood proofing, zoning, insurance, and relocation?
  39. What are the advantages and disadvantages to channelization (including artificial levees), dams and retention ponds, drainage diversions, flood proofing, zoning, insurance, and relocation?

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FINAL EXAM    

KATRINA

  1. How and why does sea level vary over the short term and over the long term and how does that affect the shoreline?
  2. What are tides, why do they occur, and how do they affect shorelines?
  3. How and why does wind create waves?
  4. What is their basic structure of wind-generated waves?
  5. How and why do waves move water when the depth is greater than wave base?
  6. How and why do waves move water when the depth is less than wave base?
  7. What is wave refraction, why does it occur, and how does it affect the shoreline?
  8. What are longshore currents and how do they form?
  9. How do waves and currents move sediment along the shoreline?
  10. What is the source of sediment for beaches and why would it vary?
  11. What is the profile of a depositional shorelines and how and why does it change with time?
  12. What are spits, baymouth bars, and lagoons and how do they form?
  13. What are deltas and where do they form?

  14. How and why do streams create deltas?

  15. How and why do wave size, strength of coastal materials, slope angle, and the shape of the coastline affect the rate at which a shoreline changes?
  16. How and why do breakwaters, seawalls, and riprap protect against erosion?
  17. What are the disadvantages of breakwaters, seawalls, and riprap?
  18. How and why do groins and jetties change sediment movement?
  19. What are the disadvantages of groins and jetties?
  20. How and why does beach replenishment and dune plantings protect against erosion?
  21. How and why do a non-equatorial location, water temperature, air humidity and temperature, wind shear, upper level divergence and a pre-existing flow pattern (like an easterly wave) affect and hurricane formation?
  22. What is the difference between tropical disturbances, tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes?
  23. Where do hurricanes form and why?
  24. In what seasons do hurricanes form and why?
  25. How and why are pressure, wind speed, storm surge and damage used to classify hurricanes?
  26. How and why do the eye, the eyewall, rain bands, the storm border, and the cirrus cloud cap form?
  27. How and why does energy flow through a hurricane at the base, in the thunderstorms, and at the top?
  28. How and why does the size of the storm, the readiness of the population, amount of development, and the condition of development affect damage?
  29. In what portion of a hurricane are the strongest winds and tornadoes most likely to occur and why?
  30. How and why does precipitation totals associated with a hurricane increase?
  31. How and why does wind, pressure, the slope of the shelf, coastal configuration, tides, and rainfall affect the magnitude of the storm surge?
  32. Why are the barrier islands and coastal wetlands of Louisiana disappearing?
  33. How and why do wetlands affect the severity of storm surge?
    34.
  34. How and why do hurricanes dissipate over land?
  35. How does the size of storm at landfall, the amount of development, the condition of development, and readiness affect the amount of damage?
  36. How and why do the levees on the Mississippi affect the disappearance of coastal land and wetlands?
  37. How do levees protect New Orleans from storm surge?
  38. How and why did the levees of New Orleans fail as a result of storm surge?
  39. What design flaws did the levees that caused them to fail?
  40. What are the consequences of the levee failures for the nearby neighborhoods?
  41. In what ways did various federal, state and local organizations fail and how did those failures make the disaster worse?

ESSAYS (Two of these questions appear verbatim on the Final Exam)

  1. Describe and explain the various types of failures that affected the artificial levees during the 1993 Mississippi River flood and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
  2. Explain how and why groins and breakwaters affect erosion and deposition on a coastline. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of using these structures.
  3. What do the 1993 Mississippi River flood and the situation in New Orleans after Katrina tell us about the desirability of structural as opposed to non-structural approaches? Give examples from class to support your argument.
  4. One week after Katrina hit, you are asked what we should now do with the city of New Orleans. Support your argument using information from class. Address at least one counterargument.

EXAMS 1 – 3

  1. How and why do humans play a role in causing disaster?
  2. What is the relationship between loss of life, property loss, and catastrophe?
  3. How do area affected, speed, magnitude and warning affect the catastrophe potential of a hazard?
  4. What is risk and how do we calculate risk?
  5. How and why does an increase in population affect vulnerability to hazards?
  6. What is the relationship of magnitude and frequency and what is the importance to humans and disasters?
  7. How are structural approaches to hazards different than non-structural?
  8. How do convergent plate boundaries function and what are their primary features?
  9. How do plate movement, stress, earthquakes, and volcanism relate to a convergent plate boundary?
  10. What are the three types of stress and how are they related to the three types of strain?
    11.
  11. What is liquefaction, how and why does it occur and what is the effect on the surface?
  12. How and why do location, mineralogy, temperature, viscosity, and the presence of water and gas control eruptions and what is the effect of each?
  13. What kind of location, mineralogy, temperature, viscosity, eruptions and eruptions products are produced by composite volcanoes?
  14. What is the relationship between slope stability, DF and RF?
  15. What is the relationship between slope stability, RF, weight, slope, normal stress, friction and cohesion?
  16. What is the relationship between slope stability, DF, weight, and slope angle?

  17. How and why do precipitation total, precipitation intensity, soil moisture, season, slope, soil texture, vegetation cover, and soil condition affect infiltration?

  18. How and why does infiltration affect overland flow, lag time, peak discharge, and flooding?  
  19. How and why does infiltration affect the formation of rills and gullies?
  20. How and why does land use and infiltration affect lag time, peak discharge and flooding?  
  21. What is the main philosophy and the actual physical approaches behinds the following general areas of flood control: channelization (including artificial levees), dams and retention ponds, drainage diversions, flood proofing, zoning, insurance, and relocation?
    22.

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Created by Alan Paul Price mailto:paul.price@uwc.edu
D2L Class Website:  http://d2l.uwc.edu/
UW-Washington County Website: http://washington.uwc.edu/default.asp
Last Modified May 11, 2009