Australia - Hazards, Disasters, and Catastrophes

As far as coastal hazards go Australia only faces a single major problem. That issue is coastal erosion. Coastal erosion is due to a high volume of repeated wave action hitting land. As this process occurs the coastal line degrades and slowly begins to fall apart. Coastal erosion causes damage and can completely destroy human infrastructure. Because of this, this is more of an economic issue than a physical safety one. Though this hazard can and has displaced hundreds of people from their homes for the fear of the land eroding from under them. The erosion usually takes place on beaches and dunes, land that isn't dense and compacted. Unfortunately 50% of  Australia's coastline is made up either sand or dunes. These sediments can easily be displaced and washed away giving way to erosion. Not much can be done about a process so natural and that's always occurring. Though some use of seawalls are made to prevent erosion, little is done to prevent it. The government agency Geo- ...

In Australia, extreme weather issues are usually not an issue. With the exception of devastating heatwaves occurring within the country. Heatwaves have always been a natural hazard that has caused deaths all through the country. Since the year 2000 there has been over 550 deaths due to these heat waves. This doesn't count the deaths due to fires  created by heatwaves. The death toll would be in the thousands if this figure was included. The temperatures of a heatwave in Australia can exceed 110 degrees as an average temperature for days at a time. This can particularly be harmful to young children, the elderly and people with certain health issues. During the month of January 2018 multiple cities broke their records for hottest day. Some cities exceeded over 115 degrees during peak times of heat. Radio broadcasts commonly push out incoming news regarding heatwaves and keep the public up to date about current and future ones. Also emergency services are on extra alert on stand...

Australia is usually spared in regards to many sever natural hazards but mass wasting is not one of them. More than one thousand landslides have occurred in Australia since 2015. They experience a large number of slow sediment flows that affect mainly New South Wales which is the southern part of the country. This is due to the larger amount of rainfall in the area as well its steep cliffs. Geoscience, the organization working with the Australia government plays a key role in mitigating damage caused by landslides as well as researching them. Geoscience collects data from landslides from all over the country and are able to evaluate landslide influences. They provide independent information to the government which in return helps improve preparedness and response strategies in the event of a landslide. SOURCES: Link 1 , Link 2

Australia is a country with no active volcanoes. There are dormant volcanoes that exist in Australia yet not a single one has erupted in about 7,000 years. Australia doesn't sit near a plate boundary so this would be the reason for its non existent number of active volcanoes. Though close by is Indonesia which does sit on the Australian - Sunda plate boundary. A large concentration of seismic and volcanic activity can be found here. Just within the past month there has been multiple eruptions across the islands. Indonesia is home to the largest at risk population to volcanic hazards (Dave Applegate). The Indonesian Center for Volcanology and Geologic Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM) as well as the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) work in correspondence with each other to maintain a sophisticated up to date volcanic detection system. Recently the Indonesian government has implemented a new system which alerts civilians through a mobile based application that can be downlo...

As far as seismic activity goes Australia is a sleeping baby. There is next to no seismic activity stirring on the continent. Though seismographs are sparse throughout the country they have a fully running network of them mainly situated along the east coast and the eastern inland areas. They pick up on earthquakes ranging around a 2.0 or higher. Buildings in Australia are not built to handle earthquakes of a high magnitude. Anything above a 3.5 has capabilities of damaging infrastructure and causing harm. Though large earthquakes don't occur often in Australia they do occur every so often. A 6.1 quake came from the earth with Petermann Ranges being the epicenter. This quaked happened in 2016 and before this the largest quaked happened in 1997 with a 6.2 earthquake in Collier Bay. So what is the nation doing to prepare for these rare yet devastating earthquakes? Well the government organization Geoscience Australia is always at work . They provide independent advice to the Austral...

Tectonic boundaries are the outer edges of a tectonic plate. These boundaries are hot spots for natural disaster inducing activity. There are three types of boundaries which primarily give rise to certain geological events. The boundary in effect for the Australian plate in relation to the Sunda plate is a convergent boundary. A convergent boundary is when two parts of the lithosphere are colliding into one another . When this occurs it pushes the lithosphere down and under its counterpart which in returns pushes the opposite part of land mass up. Large convergent collisions can create massive mountainous formations along with the rise of volcanoes.  The Australian plate is subducting under the Sunda plate which is why there is an immense amount  volcanic activity in Indonesia due to it sitting on top of the boundary. Thankfully Australia is approximately 500 miles away from the Sunda plate and about 300 miles to the closes point of the Pacific plate boundary. This means...