Jordans Blog! Week 1

     I chose to study Thailand this semester to hopefully learn more about the country my family came from, and the natural hazards they face there. It is typically a tropical climate the weather is strongly affected by winds from monsoons. With monsoons being common in their part of the world, there is typically humid air and heavy rainfall(mostly in the mountain areas). Thailand is the second largest nation in Southeast Asia, with over 200,000 square feet of mountains, forest, beaches, rivers, and dry plateaus. Their nation consists of a constitutional Monarchy where there is a king, but still a democracy. The country is most threatened by flooding and/or droughts, but has had past disasters involving mass storms and ocean earthquakes which led to tsunamis. In the last 10 years the most constant issue has been flooding, and the 10 years before that it was droughts and floods. The geographic problems seem to come in waves for Thailand as a country, but most people who study this country can tie most of the changes in natural hazard patterns back to change in climate caused by humans. 

Here is an image of what some of the flooding events can look like in busy areas.

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And here is a picture my dad sent my from Thailand that I remembered when starting this post. 

    There are three different categories of natural occurrences.  These are hazards, disasters, and catastrophes. The lowest level is a hazard, this means that a natural event potentially threatens the health/wellbeing or property of a human. There isn't immediate danger for those not in impacted areas. A natural disaster is slightly different in a sense that the even/process is ongoing for a certain amount of time. To be considered a disaster over 10 people lives would have been take, over 100 people were affected, international assistance is requested, or a state of emergency is declared. Finally there are also natural catastrophes. These can include anything that extends past a certain period of time and requires lots of money and resources to recover from the loss. It can take years to fully recover from a catastrophe.  

A little view of the mountain landscapes and oceanfront.               

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