The roles of human geography in disaster studies

Abstract

A disaster is an event or series of events which threaten and disrupt the human lives. The studies of disaster are constantly considered related to humans because humans act as the causative factor, victim and at the same time the executant of the effort in disaster handling. Pioneered by Gilbert White and pursued by other experts, human geography later shows the roles in examining issues in disaster studies especially in disaster mitigation. Based on several research and notions, many experts in human geography agree that there is nothing natural in natural disaster. Although the disasters are often affected by geosphere physical phenomenon but various human actions and activities on the face of the earth cause certain population to be more prone to natural disaster. If the risks toward disaster need to be reduced, bigger attention needs to be given to minimize population vulnerability, increase people capacity to overcome disaster and strengthen people capability to adapt to disaster area in a long term. Currently, UN as the responsible party in reducing risk of international disaster has been doing community resilience effort adopting Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005–2015: building the nation and community resilience towards disaster, followed by Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDR) 2015-2030: reducing disaster risk and loss.