Hazards courses in North American geography programs

Abstract

Natural hazards courses are now taught in over forty percent of the geography departments of North American colleges and universities. Tremendous variation in course content and orientation exists, with lower level hazards courses typically emphasizing physical manifestations of hazards, while upper level and graduate courses are more likely to study human aspects of hazards, including various models of human responses to them. Course instructors whose doctoral dissertations dealt with hazards are significantly more likely to describe in detail, the human responses to hazards and to mention various hazard models and paradigms in their teaching. Given the content of many courses, concerns are raised about whether students are appropriately taught about the interaction of physical and human systems that create hazards.