Earth Science, Focused on Natural Disasters

About the course

The course covers geoscientific processes that can give rise to natural disasters or disaster-like situations for humans. The focus is on explaining the origins, occurrences, and consequences of these processes. The processes covered include plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanism, mass movements, climatology, and hydrology. The course aims to provide an understanding of why certain processes occur in different parts of the world and lead to various consequences depending on their occurrence and interaction with the surrounding society.

The course begins with a geoscientific overview, including a discussion of the concepts of natural disaster and natural hazard. The structure of the Earth is explained, and an introduction to plate tectonic processes is provided. This is followed by a discussion on the origins and occurrences of earthquakes. Further, volcanology is covered, describing volcanic processes, types of volcanoes, and their consequences. Mass movements or slope processes are another geoscientific process that can have both large- and small-scale consequences. The most common types of mass movements and their connections to phenomena such as volcanism, precipitation, earthquakes, etc., are described here. The climatology section begins with a general orientation about the world's climate. It exemplifies global geographical differences regarding temperature and precipitation. Different types of weather phenomenon are also described. An introduction to long-term climate changes, including the geologic perspective of extinction events follows. Other topics include forest fires, coastal erosion and floodings.