Course Information:

Catalogue Description:
Prerequisite: one earth science course (e.g., Geography 140 or Geology 102 or 163 or 190 or permission of the instructor) and one social science course (e.g., Geography 100 or 160 or permission of the instructor).
Provides a broad overview of hazards and disasters, whether natural or partly technological. This course emphasizes understanding of the physical and social dynamics that must interact to produce hazard, the spatial and temporal distributions of various hazards, and policy options for disaster preparation and loss reduction.
Course Concerns:
Earthquakes, tsunami, wildfires, mudslides, floods, droughts, epidemics, and other disasters continue to kill and injure. Sometimes thousands of people die nearly at once, e.g., the Haïti earthquake of August 2021 (which killed 2,248 people and wounded thousands more), Hurricane María in 2017 (3,059); Typhoon Haiyan in 2013 (6,340); the Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima reactor meltdown of 2011 (15,897); and the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami of 2004 (227,898). As the Fall 2023 semester starts, deaths from the Lahaina fire on Maui, Hawai'i, have exceeded 100 and may well exceed 1,000. In other cases, large-scale mortality builds by increments over an extended period of time, (e.g., the European heat wave of 2003 (70,000) and the Russian heat wave of 2010 (56,000); the Somalia drought and famine of 2010-2012 (260,000); the HIV/AIDS pandemic from 1981 to the present (35,400,000).
This semester continues the surreality of the COVID-19 pandemic disaster, its disruption of our economic underpinnings, the tragedies many of us have personally experienced, and the pandemic's imposition of "remote learning" on all of us in varying mixes over the last eight semesters. This is an incrementally-building disaster, with, so far, over 1.1 million Americans dead and another 5.8 million people around the world sharing their fate. As of this writing, we have over 693 million cases around the world and, among them, 108 million Americans. Nothing quite like teaching and learning about a disaster in real time as it unfolds around us.
Often, when we contemplate disasters as a whole, we find that life loss is particularly large in the Third World, while economic losses are greater in the developed world. So, for example, the 2010 Haïti earthquake (7.0 M_W) killed between 100,000 and 316,000 people and cost $7.8-8.5 billion, while the 1994 Northridge earthquake (6.7 M_W) killed 56-72 people and cost around $40 billion. While this is the trend in many types of natural disaster, it is not always true, and COVID-19 at this point has a disproportionate number of deaths in the United States (16.6%), though that has dropped from 2020 (23%) as the pandemic engulfs poorer countries with few resources to combat it.
Within any given country or locality, we find that any existing social inequalities and inequities are likely to be worsened by the stresses of a disaster: Richer people in dominant groups may not escape unscathed, but they have a far better chance of rebuilding their lives than do poorer people in marginalized groups. In this sense, COVID-19 is similar to most other disasters. Rates of catching the virus and of succumbing to it are disproportionately elevated among Blacks, Latinx, and older people because of socially constructed variations in underlying health conditions, in the nature of their workplaces and transportation options, and differential access to and willingness to seek out vaccines.
For a variety of global environmental and social reasons, including anthropogenic climate change, losses from natural disasters are projected to increase at increasing rates into the foreseeable future. Hazards and the disasters they generate, thus, are inherently engaging subjects. They also depend on a multidisciplinary approach for their investigation and mitigation, bringing in the insights of natural scientists, social scientists, engineers, planners, emergency managers, first responders, epidemiologists, and others. Geography is a very active discipline in the investigation of hazards, with its physical science, social science, and mapping traditions, as well as its ability to integrate these very different conceptual approaches with practical applications at all stages of the disaster cycle.
In this course, we'll start out with consideration of the human dimensions of disaster, basically an all-hazards review of relevant social science findings. The second half of the course will engage more with the natural science underpinning a few hazards and disasters types. We will consider pandemics including COVID-19 and three other disaster types of particular interest to Californians: earthquakes, wildfires, and floods (and others if we have time).

Expected Course Outcomes and Objectives:

Upon successful completion of this course, course participants should be able to:

understand the basic physical dynamics creating various hazards (e.g., earthquakes, wildfire, floods and landslides, and the rise of zoönotic diseases).
analyze the underlying probability distributions of various hazards, including magnitude and frequency distributions for different hazards
grasp hazardousness as a naturally given and socially constructed attribute of place, which varies across space
appreciate the value of spatial analysis, mapping, GIS, and remote sensing for risk assessment and real-time management of disasters and their effects
understand specific ways that technological mitigations can both reduce and exacerbate hazards in different circumstances
analyze the economic and political contexts and impacts of hazards and the social construction of differential vulnerability to hazards
understand common perceptions of, and behaviors in, risky situations and the human attachment to risky places
analyze different policy options for mitigating and preparing for disaster and managing emergency situations
appreciate that hazards research is inherently interdisciplinary and value all relevant approaches to understanding and dealing with a given hazard (e.g., natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, arts and humanities, and government policy, including first response functions, and business management)
show professional research, analysis, writing, and presentation skills in both individual and collaborative settings

Modes of Instruction and Possible COVID Issues:

COVID-19 continues to spread, though usually "only" sickening the vaccinated. COVID, which is expanding at the start of the Fall 2023 semester, may impact the operation of this course in ways we can't predict right now. Our class is approved for face-to-face operation, which works well for the lecture and occasional lab nature of the course. If changes become necessary, I may elect to mix face-to-face classes with one or more online options, e.g., synchronous Zoom classes (the "Owl" or my own Zoom computer) or asynchronous lecture and Canvas commentary. No matter the mix, however, I'll have assignments turned in on paper with backup data placed on Canvas or e-mail.
Given the improv nature of these adjustments, which may be in "real-time" as the semester, I'll be very receptive to student ideas to improve the class so that everyone can get the most out of it, no matter what the virus is up to.
The University requirements on COVID-19 are detailed below in the policies section.

Required and Recommended Materials:

Access to the CSULB Library:
You will need to visit the CSULB Library web site, so make sure you're familiar with accessing materials through it online, so that that you can easily access the online databases and full-text journal articles required for this course.

CSULB Library https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/
Setting up online access: https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/access-requirements

Required Textbooks:
There is no required textbook. Required readings will be posted, including a mix of web sites and refereed journal articles from our Library's online collection or through Google Scholar.
Recommended Texts:
While not required, you may want to add one or more of the following to your personal library as you develop your interests in hazards:

Abbott, Patrick Leon. 2019. Natural Disasters. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Alexander, David. 2000. Confronting Catastrophe: New Perspectives on Natural Disasters. Oxford, New York, and other places: Oxford University Press.
Atkinson, Christopher L. 2013. Toward Resilient Communities: Examining the Impacts of Local Governments in Disasters. London: Routledge.
Birkmann, Jörn. 2014. Measuring Vulnerability to Natural Hazards: Towards Disaster Resilient Societies . New York: United Nations University Press.
Bryant, Edward. 2005. Natural Hazards, 2nd ed. Cambridge and other places: Cambridge University Press.
Bullock, Jane; Haddow, George; and Coppola, Damon P. 2020. Introduction to Emergency Management, 7th ed. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Butterworth-Heineman.
Cutter, Susan L. 2006. Hazards Vulnerability and Environmental Justice. London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
Hyndman, Donald, and Hyndman,David. 2016. Natural Hazards and Disasters,5th ed. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.
Islam, Tanveer, and Ryan, Jeffrey. 2016. Hazard Mitigation in Emergency Management. Oxford and Waltham, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Keller, Edward A., and DeVecchio, Duane E. 2019. Natural Hazards: Earth's Processes as Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes, 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice-Hall.
Lindell, Michael K.; Prater, Carla; and Perry, Ronald W. 2007. Emergency Management. Danvers, MA: John Wiley & Sons.
Lukasiewicz, Anna, and Baldwin, Charles (ed). 2020. Natural Hazards and Disaster Justice: Challenges for Australia and Its Neighbours.
McEntire, David A. 2021. Disaster Response and Recovery: Strategies and Tactics for Resilience. 3rd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Montz, Burrell E.; Tobin, Graham A.; and Hagelman, Ronald R., III. 2017. Natural Hazards: Explanation and Integration, 2nd. ed. New York: The Guilford Press.
Philipps, Brenda D.; Neal, David M.; and Webb, Gary. 2021. Introduction to Emergency Management and Disaster Science. 3rd ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Rubin, Claire B. and Cutter, Susan L.(ed.). 2020. U.S. Emergency Management in the 21st Century: From Disaster to Catastrophe. New York and Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Smith, Keith. 2013. Environmental Hazards: Assessing Risks and Reducing Disaster, 6th ed. London and New York: Routledge.
Sylves, Richard. 2019. Disaster Policy and Politics: Emergency Management and Homeland Security. 3rd ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
Tomaszewski, Brian. 2015. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for Disaster Management. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.
Walker, Beverley E. 2022. Community Risk Reduction: Principles and Practice. Burlington, MA: Jones & Barlett Learning.
Warnick, Mark S. and Molino, Louis N., Sr. 2020. Emergency Incident Management Systems: Fundamentals and Applications, 2nd ed. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
Wisner, Ben; Blaikie, Piers; Cannon, Terry; and Davis, Ian. 2005. At Risk: Natural Hazards, People's Vulnerability, and Disasters. London and New York: Routledge.

Grading:

Assessments:
Grading is based on a midterm, a final, a collaborative research project, and labs. Graduate students are expected to do more work to even the playing field with undergraduates. In this class, graduate students will do a critical review of articles on a topic of your choosing,

The exams comprise a mix of objective questions and short essays. These are open-note, open-readings, open-labs, and, if all else fails, open-Internet. You will get study guides, which you should print and then annotate with exactly where you found the information you need to understand the guide. That way, you will quickly find what you need during the stress of a test. If you figure you can ignore studying because, hey, it's open-everything, you will find you will simply not have enough time during the test to flip through your materials or your trusty Internet search engine.

The graduate student critical review will compare and contrast at least seven sources on a hazards-related topic of particular interest to you, of which at least five sources must be articles from refereed research journals. The comparison and contrast should include, wherever relevant, comments on data sources used in the refereed articles, as well as the methods used to collect, process, and analyze them. This review gives you practice in setting up a literature review, which will be part of your master's thesis project. If you're lucky, this assignment could even be the kernel for your thesis project literature review!

The collaborative project will entail small student groups collecting information on hazard issues to be selected after class discussion of workable options. The projects will then be presented to the class in a 15 minute presentation, and written up as a "consultants' report." The projects should be illustrated with maps, graphs, and tables.

Labs will be exercises relevant to the physical dynamics and social issues found in particular types of hazards and disasters.

Grading is done on the curve. Since you are all advanced undergraduate or graduate students, you have self-selected into majors that match your interests and strengths. Graduate students have, additionally, met a high bar to get into their programs. So, the curve will be centered higher, probably around 2.50 to 2.75.
The allocation of grade points is weighted as follows:

25 pts = midterm examination
25 pts = final examination
35 pts = collaborative report, including figures and maps
15 pts = labs
plus, for graduate students, 25 pts = critical review essay

Tentative Schedule of Topics:

What is hazard?

What is natural hazard?
What is technological hazard?
What is terrorist hazard?
What is the difference between risk and vulnerability?
How can vulnerable communities become resilient communities?

Risk assessment science

Dealing with inherently uncertain situations
Epistemological problems
Type I and Type II errors

Risk management policy

Safeguard human life at all costs: precautionary principle
Minimize regulatory burden: de minimis principle
How policy preferences affect risk assessment
What is the connection between sustainable development and disaster-resilient communities?
What are the political and economic obstacles to sustainability and ? resilience?

The magnitude and frequency issue

Reducing recurrent low level hazards can raise vulnerability to catastrophic events
Costs versus benefits of mitigating low probability but high impact events

GIScience and hazards

GIS, remote sensing, cartography, and volunteered geographical information in assessing risk
Real-time application of the geospatial techniques during a disaster

Case studies drawn from at least four of the hazards below

Natural hazards

Geological hazards:

Earthquakes
Tsunami
Volcanoes
Landslides

Meteorological and climatic hazards:

Wildfires
Floods and storms
Hurricanes/typhoons
Tornadoes
Blizzards
Avalanches
Droughts
Climate change

Biological hazards:

Zoönoses: COVID-19
Vector-borne zoönoses: Plague
Changes in human-animal interactions: COVID-19, Ebola
Climate changes in vector distributions: Aedes mosquitoes are here

Extraterrestrial impacts: Vanishingly small probabilities and inconceivably huge consequences

Technological and other sociogenic hazards

Chemical regulation
Space exploration
Terrorism

Policies:

COVID-19 Health and Safety Requirements

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CSULB has implemented health and safety protocols that follow the guidance of local, state, and national public health authorities and occasionally change in response to that guidance (see COVID-19 website). As a member of our campus community, you are expected to follow all campus policies, including COVID-19 related requirements. These apply to anyone who is physically present on University grounds or participating in any CSULB-related activity. Please visit the campus COVID-19 website on a regular basis this semester.

Accessibility:

Disability:
It is the student's responsibility to let me know at the beginning of the semester if s/he has a disability that may require accommodation. I am personally committed to making my classes accessible and providing accommodations that will help everyone have the same chance at success. I need to know about the issue at the beginning of the semester, though, so that we can work out a mutually reasonable and satisfying accommodation. For more information on campus support services for disabled students, please check out https://www.csulb.edu/student-affairs/bob-murphy-access-center.
Documentation status:
As an educator, I strive to make courses accessible to all students regardless of immigration status. If your status presents obstacles to engaging in specific activities or fulfilling specific criteria, you may request confidential accommodations. You may also consult with the Office of Equity & Compliance (https://csulb.edu/equity-compliance) or the Dream Success Center (https://csulb.edu/dream) for examples of possible accommodations. Such arrangements will not jeopardize your student status, your financial aid, or any other part of your residence. Please advise me if and when you feel comfortable during the semester so that I may make appropriate alterations as needed.
Prejudice:
Violent incidents over the last few years have underscored the pervasiveness of prejudicial views of Black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, Jewish, Muslim, LGBTQ+ people, and others -- and how they create structural obstacles and inequities that can cost people's lives, safety, health, income, wealth, and ability to pursue interests and education. In my classes, I strive to create an environment that supports meaningful interactions among all my students in the common pursuit of research, inquiry, and learning, and I try to be aware of the damage that these personal and structural forces do to many students and ease their impacts as they affect your enjoyment of and progress in this class. Please feel welcome to let me know of any such impacts or, if you would be more comfortable, you can approach one of the following student assistance resource centers:

CSULB Office of Multicultural Affairs resource centers
CSULB Beach Hillel

Veterans:
Veterans come back from their service possibly quite altered or hurt by the experience and may find it a challenging mission to fit (back) into campus life, where so few of the rest of us have any understanding of their experiences or context to put them in. If you are a veteran, that isolation can pose an accessibility problem that may affect your progress in this class and other classes. If you think this may be the case, please let me know about your situation as soon as possible, so that we can find accommodations or resources that can help you benefit from this class. You might also want to contact the CSULB Veterans Services office.
Title IX:
Title IX prohibits gender discrimination, including sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. If you have experienced sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, dating/domestic violence, or stalking, the Campus Confidential Advocate is available to help. Jaqueline Urtez (e-mail: advocate@csulb.edu, phone: (562) 985-2668) can provide free and confidential support, accommodations, and referrals for victims without having to report the assault to campus authorities. While students are welcome to discuss assaults with faculty or disclose such experiences in class discussions or assignments, both faculty and teaching assistants are classified as responsible employees who are required to report all known incidents of sexual harassment/misconduct to the Office of Equity & Compliance/Title IX Office for follow-up. Reporting this information will result in the student being contacted by the Office of Equity & Compliance/Title IX Office with information on accommodations and reporting options for possible investigation. Students do not need to respond to the Office of Equity & Compliance/Title IX Office, but students who do wish to report the assault for possible investigation are encouraged to contact the Campus Confidential Advocate, who can help them through the reporting process, or they can report the assault directly to the Office of Equity & Compliance/Title IX Office by completing an online reporting form at https://www.csulb.edu/equity-compliance/title-ix-at-the-beach or contacting the Office of Equity & Compliance at OEC@csulb.edu.

Makeups:

Makeups are possible in the event of a documented unexpected emergency in a student's life or through prior arrangement with the instructor when the student has advance knowledge of a conflict in schedule, including jury duty or other governmental obligation; death of a loved one, injury, or serious illness/caretaking responsibilities in the household/family/close circle of friends; work-related issues; certain University sanctioned activities; or religious obligations and observances. COVID-19 is an active danger to all of us and to the people we interact with: Please let me know of any situations that come up so that we can accommodate your needs. Makeups under these circumstances will not be penalized with: Prior notice or documentation.
Scheduling a plane flight before the final is not a compelling conflict in schedule and will be penalized.
All other makeup requests, especially those requested after the fact or unsupported by documentation, are subject to denial or serious penalty.

Withdrawal Policy:

It is the student's responsibility to withdraw from classes. Instructors have no obligation to withdraw students who do not attend classes and, because of the bureaucratic difficulty involved, generally do not do so. This often catches transfer students by surprise, because community colleges require instructors to take daily roll and drop non-attending students and provide easy and routine mechanisms for them to do so. If you've been "spoiled" by that system, please be aware that it doesn't work that way here.
Here are the various deadlines: http://www.csulb.edu/enrollment-services/key-dates-and-deadlines

Cheating and Plagiarism Policy:

Written work that you hand in is assumed to be original unless your source material is documented appropriately. Using the ideas or words of another person, even a peer, or a web site, as if it were your own, is plagiarism. Simply changing the wording around so that it's not a direct quotation is still plagiarism if you don't give credit to the source of the ideas. If you use the exact wording of your source, enclose the statement in quotation marks or (with longer quotations) indent and single space it and then cite the source and page. When in doubt, cite. Cheating and plagiarism are serious academic offenses: They represent intellectual theft. Students should read the section on cheating and plagiarism in the CSULB catalogue, which can be accessed at http://catalog.csulb.edu/content.php?catoid=2&navoid=30.
Furthermore, students should be aware that faculty members have a range of academic actions available to them in cases of cheating and plagiarism. At a minimum, I will fail a student cheating or plagiarizing on a particular assignment, but only if I think that there was some misunderstanding about what these offenses are; if I feel that the decision to cheat or plagiarize was intentional, I will fail a student in the course. I also may then refer the student to Judicial Affairs for possible probation, suspension, or dismissal.
When in doubt, cite: It keeps you out of trouble and makes your work look polished and professional. Please ask me if you think you're getting into a grey area: I would be happy to consult with you about particular problems that come up. To learn a little more about plagiarism, take a look at this workshop on ethics in science that several faculty put together: The second section is about plagiarism. https://home.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/geography/gdep/ethics.html.

What about ChatGPT, Bard, LLaMa, Ryter, and Other AI?

AI is transforming the generation of writing and graphics and it has hit so suddenly that business, education, scientists, writers, and artists are floundering to figure out its impacts and ethical use. It will destroy some of your planned career paths; it will open up new careers for you, too. It is, therefore, important for you to become familiar with these AI models and, so, you may use them in certain ways in this class. For example, grad students might find it useful to start their research essay ("What refereed journal articles or other academic resources could I use to research the challenges of responding to disasters in tourist areas?" or whatever your topic is); all students could make use of it to ask questions about lecture, lab, or research material you don't quite understand ("what does intersectionality mean?"); all students could use AI to proofread your writing for spelling, grammar, and syntax, and I would be one happy professor reading more literate student efforts <G> and, above all, cite any AI you used for any of these purposes just as though it were an academic source, which it is. Whatever you do, don't use AI to write your essays or labs as that would amount to plagiarism and is, nowadays, detectable in TurnItIn and several new AI AI-detection programs! Also, whatever you do, don't trust AI to be telling you the truth! It's known to lie and make stuff up ("hallucinate"). You need to check its work, using regular search engines or even another AI, so you don't come off looking like a goofball! In trying to formulate my policies on this topic, I found the following sources really helpful, and you might, too:

https://www.open.edu.au/advice/insights/ethical-way-to-use-chatgpt-as-a-student
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2023/why-chatgpt-is-both-exciting-and-unsettling-for-students-and-faculty/

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