Talk:Natural hazard

Natural Hazards
I'm interested in adding some references, and some additional natural hazards to this page, but am having trouble getting the one reference that I added (in the earthquakes section I added This Dynamic Planet) correct - not sure I understand the purpose of an archived url number. --Tburress (talk) 18:39, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

No mention of responses to natural hazards
No mention of this, I note Geoscience Australia has just released a report on this, I would be surprised if the US did not have something similar. Paul foord (talk) 12:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Update submitted for review/and also copied to live page
I'm new to Wikipedia editing, and made a number of updates to the Natural Hazard article, adding refs, new sections, etc. I thought I needed to submit for review, but then thought that review may only be for new articles, rather than revisions. So I went ahead and posted my updates also - if anyone can give me guidance - was it okay to just update it live, and if so, when is it appropriate to submit for review instead? - I would be grateful. Thanks!Tburress (talk) 13:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Mini-Ice-Age / Nuclear Winter
Mini-Ice-Ages... particularly after volcanic eruptions... have had huge effects in the past and deserve a mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.87.72.14 (talk) 04:28, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * This has now been changed. EMsmile (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Third sentence not finished
The third sentence, "Geophysical hazards encompass geologic", is obviously unfinished and somebody with the needed knowledge should complete it with what geophysical hazards encompass. Mregelsberger (talk) 09:42, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Merge - 'Natural disaster' be merged into Natural hazard?
May I suggest that the page natural disaster' be merged into Natural hazard? Rather than the other way round?

It's a simple and boring and a smelly case of cause and effect: A natural hazard is the cause of a natural disaster. Further to this argument, on the page 'Natural Disaster' the information on natural hazards was the main constituent.

There's alot more that can be added on 'natural disaster' such as definitions etc (see discussion on 'natural disaster' page.), but unfortunately I have to work now! --Ragdoll1984 07:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The above comment is not very precise, which makes it inaccurate. Disasters are a social event, not a natural one. Natural hazards, such as floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, etc may exist only as a hazard if they do not or only minimally impact society. If a natural hazard does negatively impact society, it can be categorized (in increasing severity) as an emergency, disaster, or catastrophe. The term "natural disaster" is still common in media and colloquial usage, but it is not considered accurate within the current literature or theory—the articles should be revised to better define the term. Portions of the 'Natural disaster' page should probably be merged to this one, and all the pages in general probably need better categorization and reorganization to improve accuracy and clarity and reduce redundancy.

[I will edit my comment to add references and delete this note when I do] --Nebes (talk) 02:08, 11 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Please head over to the talk page of Natural disaster where this is being discussed as well now, see here. EMsmile (talk) 04:32, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
 * the discussion is also continuing here. EMsmile (talk) 09:38, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

Moving away from the term "natural disaster"
I would like to come back to the naming issue that has been raised here on the talk page a few times and also at the talk pages of natural disaster and disaster. We really ought to move away from the term "natural disaster" altogether. I've started a new discussion thread about it, please see here and contribute to the discussion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Natural_disaster#Moving_away_from_the_term_%22natural_disaster%22
 * See below for more. EMsmile (talk) 10:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal (June 2023)
Based on the discussion that took place at that other page (here), I would now like to propose that natural hazard is merged into natural disaster as a first step. A redirect could be placed to a section within natural disaster that is called "natural hazard". Some pertinent statements from the discussion on the other page: How does everyone, including User:Efbrazil feel about this proposal? EMsmile (talk) 10:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * From myself: "Looking at the article natural hazard, I am finding it rather weak and overlapping to 80% with natural disaster... Could an argument be made that natural hazard should be merged into natural disaster at least? One could say they belong together (even if they are not the same), just like we recently merged carbon offsets and credits into one article even though it's two separate concepts. The concepts are so closely related that they might be better off to be dealt with in one article, not two. This would already be an improvement in my opinion. And the (theoretically) correct term might be disasters linked to natural hazards but I know this would seem overly academic for a Wikipedia article title."
 * From User:RCraig09: "There is a distinction between hazard (a chance of negative effect) and a disaster (an actual negative effect). That said, practically all of Natural hazard is about actual disasters, whether to humans or nature in general. Accordingly, I think Natural hazard could be changed into a redirect and merged into Natural disaster. However, the closely intertwined relationship of cause and effect (humans causing natural events like climate change) argues that the WP:COMMONNAME article Natural disaster should remain—perhaps including an explanatory section like the /* Definitions and scope */ section in terminology Climate change mitigation."
 * From User:Richarit: "I am against merging it because I think the risk discussion fits better in natural hazards than natural disaster (because of the misnomer issue)". I think we can sort this out later in a merged article. Can I convince you?
 * I think merging either one into the other one, could be made to work. In any event, natural disaster gets about 10 times as many wiki views, and 15 times as many Google hits, as natural hazard. — RCraig09 (talk) 13:07, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback. And agreed that natural disaster is a more important article title in the Wikipedia context than natural hazard - another piece of evidence for that is this point: The natural disaster article exists in 102 languages. The "natural hazard" article exists in only 12 languages. I can picture that moving the natural hazard content into the natural disaster article could work; we would still explain the difference between natural hazard and natural disaster but we would do that inside of the natural disaster article. End result is hopefully one good article instead of two weak ones. EMsmile (talk) 14:40, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with a merge of natural hazards into natural disasters. Natural disasters can be talked about in future tense (as in risks of natural disasters), so can include natural hazards content. Also, merges result in higher quality articles with easier maintenance- I'm generally in favor of merging in less viewed and edited content. Efbrazil (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your feedback. We also heard back from one other contact (a reasearcher in geography) who said: " I would opt for natural disaster and merge natural hazard in there. Though as noted, it’s a contentious term. That is briefly recognised in eth article. Is it possible to acknowledge this earlier in the article?"
 * So, let us do it like that. Natural hazard can redirect to natural disaster, and its content can be merged there and/or into a section in the main hazard article . I'll start to make this change from this week ! Richarit (talk) 15:54, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, please go ahead. EMsmile (talk) 08:22, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
 * thanks, Richarit for moving the content across; I've just completed the merger + redirect now. EMsmile (talk) 13:45, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Various issues with examples of hazards
There are multiple blatant issues concerning the text in the hazard examples, including poor language quality, run-ons, and misplaced capitalization. SubZero5783 (talk) 05:36, 13 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Sure-sure, why not? 223.233.74.41 (talk) 03:15, 7 July 2023 (UTC)