Talk:Natural disaster

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Natural disaster article.
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Natural disaster was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: March 13, 2006
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[edit] Merge

You shoul merge the landslide which is a major disaster. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.54.108.69 (talk • contribs • WHOIS) .

Severe weather should probably be merged here, then perhaps divide this article into sections like "Severe weather", "Geologic hazards", etc. —jiy (talk) 20:21, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Whatever is done with respect to the contents of these articles, there should continue to be two separate articles. The concepts are completely different - it is not even the case that all severe weather causes natural disasters. Peak 22:22, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Peak. Please don't merge. -- PFHLai 05:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


  • agree with Peak. Do not merge. If there had to be an umbrella title to merge content into, it should be Natural hazards.166.20.114.10 19:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
    • oops... sorry. Above comment is mine and needs clarification. I would agree with the proposal if everything were being merged with Natural hazards which redirects to Natural disaster. In other words, I disagree with the merge because of the primary title of this article. Its like the thee falling in the woods making a sound with noone around... if a tornado occurs on the Great Plains, and there is no trailer park in the way, is it a natural disaster? I would say not, but it is a natural hazard. :) Roodog2k (talk) 19:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

I can agree that merging Severe weather into Natural disaster is inappropriate and am removing the merge notices. However, some issues need to be addressed: (1) As per Roodog2k's comments, Natural disaster should probably be renamed to Natural hazard (currently a redirect). This article only describes the hazards themselves, which may or may not result in a natural disaster. (2) Another article called Extreme weather exists, which lists historical natural disasters. This is the kind of information that would ideally belong in Natural disaster, so it should be moved here. (3) Severe weather is simply a list of links and is largely redundant with this article. I suggest converting it into a category instead. —jiy (talk) 23:54, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article assessment

Wikipedia:Article assessment has just started, and the topic under assessment is natural disasters. Please take a look. violet/riga (t) 17:19, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

There are 28 articles submitted for assessment. If you want to help out come on over - you only have to assess one to help! violet/riga (t) 15:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Failed GA

I failed this article because it does not cite its sources. To be honest, this looks more like a portal than an article as such, but if we are going to treat it as an article, it doesn't meet the GA criteria. Fieari 17:26, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I fixed the references formatting (I believe someone had added in the sources). I think myself that the "portal" type is appropriate for this topic, because I think it's hard to write a coherent article on such a diverse subject. Walkerma 08:49, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demotion of Class

I have demoted the assesment of this article from Class = A (date June 22, 2006) to Class = B (status September 5, 2006). Some topics have been added, but are not (shortly) explained. --Dirk Beetstra T C 22:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] review question (up to A again?)

Waitak asked for my opinion on this article, and if it was up to A again. My conclusion would be .. not yet, but getting there (though I realise that it is in a similar state as when it acquired A-status the previous time; I have also asked Martin Walker to have a look at it as well).

When going through the article it occurs to me, that it could as well be called natural hazard, which is not the same. I am working in a chemical lab, and there the chance on a 'disaster' is defined as the product of 'the hazard of a project' and 'the chance of it happening' (the chance I cut myself on a piece of glass is big, but the hazard can be considered low (as long as cuts are not in arteries), the chance of me blowing up a reaction with sodium azide is small (I hardly use it, try to avoid it, and using my knowledge I apply extra safety measures, take more care and avoid dangerous situations), but the hazard is huge (explosions cause a lot of damage, even on laboratory scale)) .. to me that is not yet clear from the article. The intro sentence would not be correct, technically, both the hazard as the chance can be influenced by people, so there may be a third factor there, and a disaster taking place in a place where no people live is still a disaster for wildlife (but it may be that the definition is different). As an example: another ice-age would be a big hazard (I would give it a 8 or 9 on a scale of 1-10), but the chance of happening tomorrow is quite small (between 0-1) .. Hence, not really something to worry about. Also things to consider in the article may be the predictability of hazards &c. I think it would be good if the article would elaborate on this a bit more (though I already see it is going to be controversial). (copied from user talk:Waitak and slightly adapted) I hope this helps improving the article, but feel free to ignore me. --Dirk Beetstra T C 11:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC) i hate you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.108.138.73 (talk) 15:50, 28 February 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Natural Hazards should be a seperate article!!

The points that Dirk Beetstra made in Oct 2006 are very valid. I've recently completed my dissertation on natural hazard assessment, and done work with a leading researcher in the field (Dr D Dominey-Howes), and have thus become very pedantic about defining hazard/risk/vulnerability/disaster...etc correctly.

I'm presuming the lack of recent activity on this page means that I will not offend anyone if I split this into two articles? Let me know if not!

I'll start by creating a new Natural Hazards page by simply ripping the Natural Hazards section of this page, and then I'll work on the definitions - I've got some good stuff in my dissertation introduction, that is important knowledge that I'm more than willing to impart for free!

All suggestions welcome :-) --Ragdoll1984 21:35, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

I note the copying of text out to natural hazards and then the removal of the same text from this article. I don't think changes on that scale should be undertaken without discussion (and so i've reverted). I'm sure we have discussed this prior (maybe not on this page, so i'm trying to find it). For my part I don't have an issue with a 'natural hazards' page, but i do believe that hazards and disasters should be kept together, to avoid repetition. I think the answer, if you feel it is warranted, is to improve this article to make the separation. If you split them, then confusion for the reader is inevitable, as a disaster is just a phase of a hazard. This article could sit at either disaster or at hazard, but i think fits better at disaster, as this is the more recognised form.
To that end, i suggest we request deletion on 'natural hazards', improve the article we have, and decide what name the final article should go by (even the slightly wordy but compromise, 'natural hazards and disasters' with a link from both places. Owain.davies 06:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree that this should be discussed first. On the positive side, I appreciate Ragdoll1984 mentioning it here before doing it. On the down side, I think that it would have been a better idea to give it a few days to see what people had to say before diving in. so I'm also inclined to agree with Owain.davies that splitting them, while technically correct, is likely to confuse the reader, and that we need to be a bit more thoughtful about a solution. Waitak 12:54, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for your wise input on this... My apologies for diving in there, I should have given people a chance to discuss: got a bit carried away with myself, and will not do it again. Sorry guys.
I understand now that it could be confusing for someone with limited knowledge of the topic to stumble across separate articles with the split information. I support Owain.davies's latter idea to change the title to 'natural hazards and disasters', as this would correctly define the content of the original page 'natural disasters', without splitting said content up, or placing an unbalanced emphasis on disaster or hazard.
Content wise, I believe the page could be improved upon, and I would like to have a try at this. But rather than go straight into editing the actual page (which I foolishly did last time), would you recommend I produce a preview of my suggestion/s on my userpage? Unfortunately I'll be going on holiday for a while in a few days, but would like to work on this mini-project when I return. I've dug out the lit review that I used for my dissertation which has some good explanations and definitions for hazard/vulnerability/risk(..of disaster) which are fundemental to an understanding of natural hazards and disasters and thier causes and effects. These could be re-worded and added, and I also have some ideas about simple diagrams/tables that show, for example, further ways hazards can be categorised (e.g. rapid vs slow onset, controllable vs immutable events...etc). --Ragdoll1984 20:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, we do want you to be bold... how dramatic are the changes that you have in mind? Personally, I'd say go for it (within all of the normal guidelines), but be prepared for others to hack away at what you write! I'd love to see improvements to the article. Anybody else have an opinion? Waitak 20:56, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Waitak, be bold. Remember you are writing for a general audience, but don't be afraid of being technical as long as you explain it. And don't be upset when others edit it! I would just say that if you want to change the entire structure and you're not sure if it fits, just mention that first here, but if you're happy its an improvement, best of luck! Owain.davies 21:39, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
And just one more thing as it's from your thesis - make sure you read Wikipedias policy on no original research, verifability and citations before editing. Anything you put here must be from another published source (and i'm afraid your thesis doesn't count) so if you reached new original conclusions in your thesis, and it hasn't been published, then we can't have them written here, but if another published author said it, then we can! A little complicated i'm afraid, but it will stop some of the the most common reasons for your changes being reversed! Owain.davies 21:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks immensley for your helpful suggestions - really made a newbie feel accepted, cheers! The final info on 'no original research'... etc is very handy. Will make sure I don't accidentaly slip any of my own opinions in. But I will be working from my lit review section - so any statement of fact will be from published research, so fingers crossed x. And no hard feelings if it's ripped to shreds!! Thanks again --Ragdoll1984 21:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
The hazard vs. disaster discussion has been made at WP:DM as well. There are several other articles that are affected, e.g. man-made disaster. This particular article is in my opinion already written about natural hazards - although several disasters are listed as examples. My suggestion is to rename the article to Natural hazards and create a new article at Natural disaster that basically is a list of natural disasters. What else could an article on natural disasters contain? Ragdoll1984, congratulations on completing your dissertation. --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 19:22, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Seeing that an article on Natural hazards has been created, I will be bold and align the two subjects. This means that the article on Natural disasters will be a de facto list of natural disaster and that the article on natural hazards will be an overview and introduction to threats like earthquakes, tornadoes etc. If anyone objects, please do so soon on my talkpage. I will implement the change today. --rxnd (talk) 07:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thunderstorms?

shouldn't thunderstorms be included. Personally, the only way I've been affected is that my lights go out. However, I have heard of an incedent where a family reunion was hit by lightning and over 30 were killed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishvara7 (talk • contribs) 02:44, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thunderstorms can be found in the natural hazards article. This article is on disasters caused by hazards. The thunderstorm entry that was here did not contain any information on disasters and was removed. If you know of any wiki articles on thunderstorm disasters that could be linked to, you should add the thunderstorm heading with links to the relevant articles. --rxnd (talk) 12:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

m , —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.181.241.48 (talk) 17:01, 20 May 2008 (UTC)