Natural risks

Duration

24h Th, 1d FW

Number of credits

Lecturer

Hans-Balder Havenith, Geoffrey Houbrechts, Aurelia Hubert

Coordinator

Aurelia Hubert

Language(s) of instruction

French language

Organisation and examination

Teaching in the first semester, review in January

Schedule

Schedule online

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Learning unit contents

The course is divided into four parts:

Part I (Prof. A. Hubert-Ferrari)

• Introduction to the concepts of hazard, risk, and vulnerability.
• Study of hazardous events: definitions and characteristics, historical overview, frequency-magnitude analysis.
• Introduction to exposure, vulnerability, and risk assessment.

• Basic definitions in mechanics.
• The seismic process: rupture initiation and propagation, the seismic cycle, continuum from large earthquakes to aseismic fault creep.
• Earthquake measurement: seismic waves, magnitude and macroseismic intensity, focal mechanism.
• Earthquake effects:On-fault effects; Direct effects (including site effects).; Indirect effects (landslides, liquefaction, urban fires).
• Seismic hazard assessment: paleoseismology, hazard modeling, attenuation, PGA maps.
• Seismicity in Belgium and Northwestern Europe.

• General concepts (hazard/risk, active volcanoes, frequency, duration and size of eruptions, economic impact).
• Fundamentals of volcanology: structure, morphology, causes of eruptions, origin of volcanism, magma and lava types, role of volatiles.
• Volcanic hazards: direct hazards near active volcanoes, indirect hazards.
• Methods and objectives of volcanic hazard and risk assessment.

• Mass movements in subaerial environments: definitions, movement types and geometry, distribution laws, mapping, dynamics, controlling factors, monitoring methods.

• Overview of different types of floods.
• Spatial variability of extreme rainfall; intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves.
• Flash floods in Wallonia and Western Europe: controlling parameters and mitigation measures.
• Extreme hydrological events: links with climate change and anthropogenic pressures.
• Flood hazard mapping.
• Field days related to flood risk.

Learning outcomes of the learning unit

• Understanding the processes governing landslides and volcanic eruptions, and the ability to apply this knowledge to the analysis of scientific articles and the delivery of a synthetic oral presentation.
• Understanding of natural hazards and risks, through both lectures and individual assignments.
• Ability to assess different methods for quantifying hazard, risk, and vulnerability, by attending student presentations on a variety of case studies.
• Understanding of seismic phenomena and ability to interpret the significance of a given earthquake through an individual written assignment.
• Ability to conduct bibliographic synthesis, with both written and oral outputs; acquisition of basic cartographic skills using GIS.
• Ability to produce geomorphological maps of flood-prone areas at a local scale.
• Ability to analyze field data and carry out geomorphological interpretation; capacity to write a synthesis report based on field data and to present results orally.
• Understanding of the mechanisms and factors that may contribute to or exacerbate flooding.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Chapters I and II (Aurélia Hubert):

• Individual work on recent earthquakes, with oral presentations based on various publications, each presentation focusing on a specific earthquake.
  
  
• Objective: to provide a comprehensive overview of the different approaches used to study an earthquake, to determine hazard and risk, and to analyze the associated damage and emergency responses.
  
  
• A cartographic component is also required as part of the oral presentation, using QGIS to represent elements at risk (infrastructure, population density).
  
  

• A multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ) will be given to assess mastery of the fundamental concepts.
  
  

Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)

Face-to-face course

Course materials and recommended or required readings

Platform(s) used for course materials:
- MyULiège


Further information:

Chapter I: podcast and PowerPoint files provided on MyULiège

Chapter II: PowerPoint files provided on MyULiège

Chapter III:

Chapter IV: PowerPoint files provided on MyULiège

Written work / report

Other : Oral presentations and QCM


Further information:

Written work / report

Other : oral presentation


Additional information:

Each professor will separately evaluate their part. An average will be calculated from the three evaluations.

Chapters I to II:

• Multiple-choice quiz
• Oral presentation

• A written report on the topic of flood zone mapping (20%) and an oral presentation (in groups of 2-3) on a topic related to flooding in different climatic contexts (20%) 

Work placement(s)

Organisational remarks and main changes to the course

Contacts

Part I to II: Aurélia Hubert-Ferrari; aurelia.ferrari@uliege.be

Part III: Hans-Balder Havennith; HB.Havenith@uliege.be

Part IV : Geoffrey Houbrechts - G.Houbrechts@uliege.be 

Association of one or more MOOCs

Items online