Natural hazard

Abstract

Natural hazards are phenomena resulting from the geophysical processes that are an integral part of the environment. People cannot control natural hazards, but can be significantly affected by them if a natural disaster (i.e., the concrete realization of a hazard in a populated area) occurs. There are many direct and indirect effects of natural hazards, but most of them are associated with great economic and nonmaterial losses. Therefore, those phenomena are characterized not only by natural but also social, economic, and political aspects. As the climate change scenarios indicate that the risk of natural hazard is supposed to increase, it is of utmost importance to improve the mitigation strategies. The basic problem to be solved is better communication together with better information and knowledge transfer from the scientific community to societies and politicians. That goal can be achieved by permanent environmental education programs realized both at the international and regional level.