Environmental disaster

An environmental disaster is a disaster to the natural environment due to human activity, which distinguishes it from the concept of a natural disaster. It is also distinct from intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.

In this case, the impact of humans' alteration of the ecosystem has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences. It can include the deaths of animals (including humans) and plants, or severe disruption of human life, possibly requiring migration.

Environmental disasters

Environmental disasters can have an effect on agriculture, biodiversity, the economy and human health. The causes include pollution, depletion of natural resources, industrial activity or agriculture.

List of environmental disasters caused by humans

Sierra Leone

Coordinates: 8°30′N 11°30′W / 8.500°N 11.500°W / 8.500; -11.500

Sierra Leone (ⁱ/sɪˈɛərə lɪˈoʊni, -lɪˈoʊn/), officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea on the north, Liberia in the south-east, and the Atlantic Ocean in the south-west. Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with a diverse environment ranging from savannah to rainforests. Sierra Leone has a total area of 71,740 km² (27,699 sq mi) and an estimated population of 6 million (2011 United Nations estimate).Freetown is the capital, largest city, and its economic and political centre. Bo is the second largest city. The other major cities in the country with a population above 100,000 are Kenema, Makeni and Koidu Town. Sierra Leone is divided into four geographical regions: the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area, which are further divided into fourteen districts.

About sixteen ethnic groups inhabit Sierra Leone, each with their own language and customs. The two largest and most influential are the Temne and the Mende people. The Temne are predominantly found in the north of the country, while the Mende are predominant in the south-east. Although English is the official language spoken at schools and government administration, the Krio language is the most widely spoken language in the country and unites all the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other.

Love Canal

Love Canal is a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, located in the LaSalle section of the city. It officially covers 36 square blocks in the far southeastern corner of the city, along 99th Street and Read Avenue. Two bodies of water define the northern and southern boundaries of the neighborhood: Bergholtz Creek to the north and the Niagara River one-quarter mile (400 m) to the south. In the mid-1970s Love Canal became the subject of national and international attention after it was revealed in the press that the site had formerly been used to bury 22,000 tons of toxic waste by Hooker Chemical Company (now Occidental Petroleum).

Hooker Chemical deeded the site to the Niagara Falls School Board in 1953 for $1 with a liability limitation clause. Long after having taken control of the land the School Board proceeded to have it developed, including construction activity that substantially breached containment structures in a number of ways, allowing previously trapped chemicals to seep out. The resulting breaches combined with particularly heavy rainstorms released and spread the chemical waste, leading to a public health emergency and an urban planning scandal. In what became a test case for liability clauses, Hooker Chemical was found to be "negligent" in their disposal of waste, though not reckless in the sale of the land. The dumpsite was discovered and investigated by the local newspaper, the Niagara Falls Gazette, from 1976 through the evacuation in 1978.

National Geographic

National Geographic or NatGeo may refer to:

See also

Disaster

A disaster is a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.

In contemporary academia, disasters are seen as the consequence of inappropriately managed risk. These risks are the product of a combination of both hazards and vulnerability. Hazards that strike in areas with low vulnerability will never become disasters, as is the case in uninhabited regions.

Developing countries suffer the greatest costs when a disaster hits – more than 95 percent of all deaths caused by hazards occur in developing countries, and losses due to natural hazards are 20 times greater (as a percentage of GDP) in developing countries than in industrialized countries.

Etymology

The word disaster is derived from Middle French désastre and that from Old Italian disastro, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek pejorative prefix δυσ-, (dus-) "bad" and ἀστήρ (aster), "star". The root of the word disaster ("bad star" in Greek) comes from an astrological sense of a calamity blamed on the position of planets.