ENVIR ST 260 1st Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I Succession and Stability a Natural Disturbances b Climax Community Concept c Disturbances and Society II Housekeeping Outline of Current Lecture I Disturbance Regime a Scale b Frequency c Intensity II Predictability III Responsibility IV Reconstruction Current Lecture Audio Clip Scientists 2 from Japan and 1 from the U S have won the Nobel Prize in physics for the invention of blue light emitting diodes a new energy efficient and environment friendly light source Connection to Class A lot of us are writing about positive and negative energies and these lights tie into that because they help save energy Last week These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Scale Ecological benefits Potential to maintain an ecosystem with disturbance Disturbance regime pattern of disturbance These are the patterns of disturbance in an ecosystem They can combine in all different kinds of ways Scale You can have really small scale disturbances like animal burrows or a single tree fall or you can have really large scale disturbances like hurricanes Frequency This is how often something is going to happen Tree Ring Example You can look at tree rings and fire scars to learn when there were wild fires Ecologists can sample a lot of trees in an area to determine how large the fires were This example of fires is one that is relatively frequent A less frequent example would be volcanic eruptions in the US These are really infrequent They happen every few million years People don t really think about long term frequencies but pay more attention to the more frequent disturbances Frequency can work on a geological time scale Clicker Question How frequently would a disturbance have to occur to make you think twice about living somewhere Every 3 5 years Every 15 years Every 50 years Every 100 years Every 1 000 years Most people said A or B With longer term intervals there s typically a problem with perceived risk We don t really see it as a risk because it doesn t happen frequently A lot of living with disturbances comes down to how people respond Intensity This is energy release Video DJI Feats Eruption example of high energy release There s a lot of heat energy and potential for earth quakes They re very high intensity Energy associated with something like that will be really destructive Volcanos are typically all or nothing when it comes to intensity Something with broader intensities are earth quakes They can be really small to where you don t even realize they re happening or large with total destruction Predictability Clicker Question Are the patterns predictable Generally yes Generally no Only for frequent disturbances Only for infrequent disturbances The majority of the class says generally yes but a good amount of others think B and C The professor says that generally there should be some predictability to patterns of disturbance but really they re very unpredictable Idea of predictability Hurricane Season in the North East Spaghetti Plot Example Every time a storm forms in the ocean you get a lot of predictions of where the storm is going to hit However there s a really wide range to these predications and it s very hard to predict accurately In regions where hurricanes are more frequent some places get hit really often while others haven t gotten hit in a very long time This past history can build uncertainty into people s minds For example because nothing has happened in Tampa for 50 75 years the people there have a very low perceived risk of a hurricane hitting them This idea of disturbance regimes being something that we can predict can be a little tricky because even with all of our technology we can t really tell people very far in advance that a storm is going to hit them Responsibility Clicker Question Who is responsible for preparation Property Owners Insurance agencies Government army corps Most people said A and some others said C Class thoughts How would you enforce responsibility to property owners Insurance companies can lower your premiums if you take precautionary steps If you don t they can higher the costs Try to enforce improved building codes Education Clicker Question Who is typically responsible for repairing damages Property owners Insurance agencies Government agencies FEMA The government is typically the one helping with disasters The government ends up being responsible for 75 to 80 of effort There s a bit of disconnect there Ted Talk Video This will be posted on the webpage In this case the citizens in the community took responsibility Disaster response in the US FEMA Red Cross Salvation Army What about places that lack resources and infrastructure to begin with Haiti is still rebuilding after the earthquake that hit in 2010 due to their lack of infrastructure In this type of situation the rest of the world typically ends up taking responsibility Worldwide there are a lot of aid agencies A lot of money flows into disaster response Typically it s captured in the first 5 days after an event happens Reconstruction Clicker Question Should communities rebuild Yes No Majority said yes Reasons why they said yes It makes economic sense These are people s homes Reasons why others said no Odds are a natural disaster is going to happen again so rebuilding seems like a waste of resources Video Clip Lower 9th Ward In thinking about the rebuilding issue a green dot map was built in which the areas covered by the green dots would be turned into parks and used as flood protection in the future Government oversight and scientific knowledge said to turn them it into parks so the area could be more resilient in the future but they re rebuilding anyway There s disconnect because people just can t let go of where they live When thinking about living with disaster society really drives responses and sometimes they don t go in the right direction