Why have I been given this?

Human vulnerability to ‘natural’ disasters

A case study of Hurricane Katrina

This article argues that Hurricane Katrina was not a ‘natural’ disaster. Human error caused the catastrophic flooding, and its impacts were magnified by the lack of resilience in large parts of the New Orleans population. Managing human vulnerability and coping capacity is key to disaster prevention

Christine Eriksen

People queueing to be evacuated from New Orleans by helicopter

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This article considers how natural hazards become disasters. It uses Hurricane Katrina as a case study to demonstrate how government policies, social injustice and people’s everyday practices are directly linked to short-and long-term disaster vulnerability and resilience. It concludes that disaster prevention and recovery efforts should focus as much on people’s coping capacity as on physical measures like floodproof homes or river levées.