Hollie Martin To what extent can preparedness and planning mitigate the effect of tropical revolving storms? (40) Tropical revolving storms are also known as hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons. They all occur in a band that lies roughly between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. However, some storms can form just outside of the tropics, but in general the distribution of these storms is controlled by the places where sea temperatures rise above 27?c and is heated to a sufficient depth. The impacts of tropical revolving storms can be devastating. While hazardous events cannot be prevented, human actions before and after can profoundly reduce disastrous impacts on the human environment.
Hazard mitigation defines and implements the actions necessary to minimise the adverse consequence of disasters. Within this essay I will discuss whether the preparedness and planning can mitigate these effects caused by the gale force winds, torrential rainfall and storm surges, which are the main hazards associated with tropical revolving storms. The impacts however can vary in severity due to a range of human and physical factors. The human factors include how urbanized the area affected is, as built up cities tend to have impermeable surfaces which increases run-off and worsens the floods that occur.
These impermeable surfaces replace trees and vegetation via deforestation which would intercept the rain and store it in the soil, allowing it to be released over a period of time and avoid severe flooding. Other human factors include warning systems put in place to predict incoming storms and inform the public about them. This can be linked in with the effectiveness of the government, as governments in developed and stable countries often deal with disasters more effectively than governments in less developed countries. However, regardless of the human factors, the physical ones are out of our control and can mean the difference between a serious storm and a devastating…
