ENVIR ST 260 1st Edition Lecture 9Outline of Last Lecture I. Succession and Stabilitya. Natural Disturbancesb. Climax Community Conceptc. Disturbances and SocietyII. HousekeepingOutline of Current Lecture I. Disturbance Regimea. Scaleb. Frequencyc. IntensityII. PredictabilityIII. ResponsibilityIV. ReconstructionCurrent 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 weekThese 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 disturbanceDisturbance 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 werewild 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 longterm 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 destructionPredictability 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