5 Vulnerability and disasters

The key to understanding natural hazards and disasters is that the environment has a dual character: it is both a source of production opportunities (farming, fisheries, forests, pastures, energy sources, etc.) and of hazards. Many of the locations that provide for livelihoods are also at risk from geophysical and meteorological hazards. In much of the world, people are willing – or forced by poverty – to risk being exposed to hazards in order to reap the everyday production benefits that happen to be in dangerous places: f lood plains provide farmers with fertile soils, and f lat land for settlement, transport links and production activities; the slopes of volcanoes normally give rise to very fertile soils for farmers; tsunami and storm-prone coasts are often suited to agriculture, cities and trade, and even active geological faults that trigger earthquakes channel water to the surface and provide the basis for life in the desert.