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The 20th century, especially in the second half, has been one of rapid change in the Earth's environment. The impact of humans on the physical form and functioning of the Earth have reached levels that are global in character, and have done so at an increasingly ....

Middle of Essay
.... now see the environment as being truly threatened by human progress and in desperate need of help. Natural hazards have been defined as “...extreme geophysical events greatly exceeding normal human expectations in terms of their magnitude or frequency and causing significant damage to man and his works with possible loss of life.” (Heathcote,1979,p.3.). A natural hazard occurs when there is an interaction between a system of human resource management and extreme or rare natural phenomena (Chapman,1994). As McCall, Laming and Scott (1991) argue, strictly speaking there is no hazard unless humans are affected in some way. Yet the line between ....