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Quiz yourself on Natural Hazards OverviewGet your flashcardsBuild my revision planTrack my progress🌍 Types of Natural Hazard
Natural hazards are classified into four broad categories. Knowing these categories — and being able to give examples for each — is a baseline GCSE requirement for both OCR B and AQA.
| Category | Type of Hazard | Named Examples | Caused By |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tectonic | Earthquake, volcanic eruption, tsunami | Haiti earthquake 2010; Chile earthquake 2010; Eyjafjallajökull eruption, Iceland 2010 | Movement of tectonic plates |
| Atmospheric | Tropical storm (hurricane/typhoon/cyclone), tornado, drought, extreme cold/heat | Typhoon Haiyan 2013 (Philippines); Hurricane Katrina 2005 (USA); Sahel drought | Extreme atmospheric conditions, air pressure systems, climate patterns |
| Geomorphological | Flood, landslide, avalanche, coastal erosion | Vargas, Venezuela landslide 1999 (25,000 dead); Boscastle flood 2004 (UK); Somerset Levels flood 2014 (UK) | Surface processes — water movement, gravity, slope instability |
| Biological | Pandemic, pest swarm, wildfire, coral bleaching | COVID-19 pandemic (2020); Australia bushfires 2019–20; locust swarms East Africa 2020 | Biological processes, living organisms, often exacerbated by climate |
A key exam skill is identifying which category a hazard belongs to and then explaining what makes it hazardous. Many hazards interact: an earthquake can trigger a tsunami (tectonic → geomorphological); deforestation increases landslide risk (human action → geomorphological); climate change intensifies tropical storms (climate → atmospheric).
Quick Check: Classify each hazard and give the correct category: (a) Typhoon Haiyan, (b) the Vargas landslide, Venezuela, (c) the 2010 Haiti earthquake, (d) the Australia bushfires 2019–20.
(a) Typhoon Haiyan — atmospheric hazard (tropical storm). (b) Vargas landslide — geomorphological hazard (mass movement). (c) Haiti earthquake — tectonic hazard. (d) Australia bushfires — biological hazard (wildfire). Note that some hazards cross categories: the Vargas disaster involved both flooding and landslides triggered by extreme rainfall — so atmospheric and geomorphological. This kind of nuance scores well at Level 3.
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