Starting lecture was about urban risks and natural hazards. I already knew that the most common causes of death in the US are heart deseases and cancer. The next most common are accidents. It is odd how much people are afraid of natural forces, when they are the cause of death in only 1 in 3360 cases. It is irrational to be so afraid of wild animals and storms, when mostly we just fall down from kitchen chair.
We made a weighting discussion in the end of the lecture. We had to figure out weightings for different types of natural hazards for Europe. It was very difficult! I noticed many of the natural hazards on the list very seldom happen in Europe. It must be very hard to define weightings for natural hazards in the reality. We thought flood and forest fire are the most common ones. When we had a change to evaluate same hazards again based on other group’s assessment, it was already much easier. You just had to adjust the weightings according to both group’s values. Results from the 1st round are in the table below.
| Natural hazard | Weighting (%) 1st round |
| Drought | 4 |
| Extreme temperatures | 12 |
| Earthquaqe | 5 |
| Flood | 20 |
| Forest fire | 20 |
| Landslide | 5 |
| Storm/cyclone | 15 |
| Storm surge | 10 |
| Tsunami | 1 |
| Vulcano eruption | 8 |
| Total | 100 |
Home task was to evaluate same situation in our hometowns based on different stakeholder’s opinions. My home town is Helsinki. I think flood, storm or storm surge are most likely to happen here. Also extreme temperatures have caused troubles. Last summer was very warm and air conditioning didn’t work in for example some hospitals. On the other hand last winter was very cold and some people even fell down the roof when they were clearing their roofs from snow. Different stakeholders in Helsinki could be the inhabitants, the government, local authorities and NGOs. I think the outcome would be maybe that drought or storm is the biggest natural hazard, because Helsinki is situated on the coast. Local authorities and inhabitants would maybe emphasize the role of extreme temperatures.
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