Natural Disasters and Earth System Research - Cristian Fernandez

Earth systems can affect each other in many different ways, these interactions often happen during large natural events or disasters but also happen in our everyday lives. The hydrosphere interacts with the geosphere by moving large amounts of land between and away from places creating new formations and diminishing others. In natural disasters the importance of the different environmental systems is exaggerated because the changes are on such a large scale they force their way into other systems. To explain my last point, when a hurricane happens mainly the atmosphere and the hydrosphere interact with each other, but when the conditions of this event become extreme the geosphere can be affected because the combination of water and wind can move large amounts of land to the sea or other parts of the land. The understanding of natural science is key to aiding in handling natural disasters. This is because without the understanding of how hurricanes work or why earthquakes happen it is impossible to correctly prepare for them. This lack of knowledge can be the cost of billions of dollars in recovery from a natural disaster. For creating a sustainable future the thing we have to think about is preparation for these events, it seems like a waste of time to create things to try to prevent natural disasters. Except for sea walls and few other things that can completely solve an issue it should be our primary focus on designing houses that can withstand more extreme weather and buildings that can hold up to larger earthquakes.