SSCI 214 – Human Populations and Natural Hazards
Homework Assignment
Homework Assignment 1
Part I:
Summary:
In chapter 1, Smith discusses how the study of hazard needs to include chronic hazards, such as
poverty, that can exacerbate disasters as well as the human toll of a hazard, such as grief and the
mental burdens that accompany disaster. This helped me better understand different hazards and how
hazards overlap with each other. One hazard can cause a chain reaction that escalates due to other
chronic hazards. I was particularly moved by the example of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. After the
magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake, people lost their lives and infrastructure collapsed, damaging energy
and water networks, which then impacted transportation and communication. Infrastructure was
already poor, mainly due to poverty after colonization and economic punishment from the US and
France, and these historical vulnerabilities exacerbated the damage. Furthermore, the UN
peacekeepers started a cholera outbreak due to mismanagement of their waste, which felt particularly
emblematic of how formerly imperial powers often fail to provide adequate aid, as they do not provide
infrastructure that can remove chronic hazards like poverty or weak infrastructure. The chapter also
discussed how previously, disasters were considered an engineering problem, and how over time,
they’ve become thought of as more and more intertwined with socio-political-economic issues that
intersect with feminism, racism, and de/postcolonialism. Managing environmental disasters are
“wicked problems” instead of regular problems because they cannot be solved by simple engineering,
and they can be considered symptoms of other problems.
In chapter 2, Smith expands on the difficulty of measuring a disaster. While they can be
measured quantitatively, there is no way to measure the social impacts a disaster can have, such as
giving people a sense of insecurity, childhood trauma, grief, chronic disaster syndrome, and the social
impacts of poverty. This is something I will continue thinking about as this class has a large data
component. Smith also expanded on disaster communication, as people conceptualize the scale of an
event through social media, documentary, literary, and film accounts. While disasters have gotten
worse in scale due to urbanization and climate change, social media, satellite and drone imagery, and
other technologies can help reduce potential damage. Information technology and more powerful
computers can help us simulate and model potential disasters and disaster responses. For example,
technologies can help reduce traffic during evacuations, provide early warning for famines, and help
people communicate during a disaster. This seems to be where data can come most in handy – the
quantification is important, but even more important is how that can ultimately be used to protect
people from disasters.
Part II:
One of the earliest environmental hazard paradigms was Engineering. One of the reasons I
decided to major in civil engineering was so that I could contribute to natural disaster mitigation and
adaptation. I believe that engineering is particularly useful in addressing natural disasters, as warning
systems save lives before disasters. For example, people working outside who know a day is likely to be
extremely hot or extremely cold can plan accordingly, and while that may sound small, the extra
Gatorade on a hot day can truly avoid a trip to the hospital. There have been many structural
engineering feats in making building materials more flexible to be more resilient against earthquakes. I
believe that the approach to disasters needs to include engineering solutions alongside social
USC Spatial Sciences Institute © 2026
SSCI 214 – Human Populations and Natural Hazards
Homework Assignment
approaches. I once attended a speaker event from a USC professor discussing her work cleaning up
after environmental disasters, and she discussed how oftentimes, engineers neglect the community
and cultures when approaching a problem. During one of her trips, she built houses on stilts after a
major flood, only for the community, which held cultural superstitions against a raised home, to reject
the new homes. Engineering solutions are some of the most powerful, and yet they also must consider
different cultures and social issues, and approach each problem as an individual.
USC Spatial Sciences Institute © 2026