Natural process or phenomenon that
may cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, loss
of livelihoods and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental
damage. Natural hazards are a sub-set of all hazards. The term is used to
describe actual hazard events as well as the latent hazard conditions that may
give rise to future events. Natural hazard events can be characterized by their
magnitude or intensity, speed of onset, duration, and area of extent. For
example, earthquakes have short durations and usually affect a relatively small
region, whereas droughts are slow to develop and fade away and often affect
large regions. In some cases hazards may
be coupled, as in the flood caused by a hurricane or the tsunami that is
created by an earthquake.