Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
environmental damage on a community scale
. When these events have long-run
effects they are considered chronic technological disaster.
Some studies identify seven major classes of technological hazards ordered on a
three-fold scale of severity. According to this classi
”
cation, the most severe tech-
nological hazards are the multiple extreme hazards (i.e. nuclear war, recombinant
DNA, pesticides). In the second level of the scale there are the extreme hazards,
respectively caused by intentional biocides (chain saws, antibiotics, vaccines),
persistent teratogens (i.e. uranium mining, rubber manufacture), rare catastrophes
(i.e. LNG explosions, commercial aviation crashes), common killers (i.e. auto
crashes, coal-mining diseases such as black lung), diffuse global threats (i.e. fossil
fuel and CO
2
release, ozone depletion). In the third and lower level there are the
so-called simple technological hazards.
In late 1990s, trying to provide
technical and organizational tools for the pre-
vention, mitigation and the relief of disasters an International Working group
appointed by United Nations drafted an indicative list with different type of actions
which can constitute technological hazards:
“
Release of chemicals to the atmosphere by explosion,
re
Release of chemicals into water (groundwater, rivers etc.) by tank rupture,
pipeline rupture, chemical dissolved in water (
re)
Oil spills in marine environment
Satellite crash (radionuclides)
Radioactive sources in metallurgical processes
Other sources of releases of radionuclides to the environment
Contamination by waste management activities
Soil contamination
Accidents with groundwater contamination (road, rail)
Groundwater contamination by waste dumps (slowly moving contamination)
Aircraft accidents
Releases and contaminations as consequence of military actions (e.g. depleted
uranium) or destruction of facilities
Releases as consequence of the industrial use of biological material (e.g. viruses,
bacteria, fungi).
5
8.2 From the Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century
Natural hazards and disasters are phenomena with which human societies has
always been accustomed to live since antiquity.
6
But even man-made threats,
technological hazards and disasters cannot be considered a prerogative of modern
5
Krejsa (
1997
).
6
Kates (
1971
) and Nash (
1976
).
