An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity.[2] This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.
Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences.[3] These disasters have included deaths of wildlife, humans and plants, or severe disruption of human life or health, possibly requiring migration.[4] Some environmental disasters are the trigger source of more expansive environmental conflicts, where effected groups try to socially confront the actors responsible for the disaster.
The following is a list of major environmental disasters:
Seveso disaster, 1976 – Release of dioxin in Italy by a small chemical manufacturing plant.[6] The resulting contamination led to thousands of human hospitalizations, and the deaths of more than 25% of local fauna. To prevent the chemical from entering the food chain, the town culled over 80,000 animals.[7]
Amoco Cadiz oil spill, 1978 – The vessel broke in two, releasing its entire cargo of 1.6 million barrels (250,000 m3) of oil off the coast of Brittany, France. The amount of oil released totaled five times more than the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989.[9]
Bhopal disaster, 1984 – Release of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals. Some estimate 8,000 people died within two weeks. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.
Hanford Nuclear, 1986 – The U.S. government declassified 19,000 pages of documents indicating that between 1946 and 1986, the Hanford Site near Richland, Washington, released thousands of US gallons of radioactive liquids. Radioactive waste was both released into the air and flowed into the Columbia River (which flows to the ocean).
Kuwait oil fires, 1991 – Iraqi forces set 600-700 oil wells ablaze in retaliation to Desert Storm, which lasted seven months.
Hickory Woods, 1998 – Neighborhood in Buffalo, New York that was developed on land contaminated by leftover coke from steel production factories.[11] The contamination was known to be an issue and repeatedly investigated, but continuously deemed safe for residents. Toxic materials found included elevated levels of arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, naphthalene, dibenzofuran, and carbazole.
Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, 2008 – Template:Convert of slurry spilled from a coal plant, covering 300 acres, flowing down several rivers, destroying homes and contaminating water. The volume spilled was over 7 times as much as the volume of oil spilled in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 2010 – An explosion killed 11 men working on the platform and injured 34 others. The gushing wellhead was capped, after it had released about Template:Convert of crude oil.
Ohio train derailment, 2023 – A Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The rail cars burned for several days, releasing chemicals into the air. Norfolk has been accused of mismanagement.
Sino-Metals Leach Zambia dam disaster, 2025 — Catastrophic failure of a tailings dam constructed for copper extraction by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, dumping approximately 50 million liters of acidic and highly toxic waste into the Kafue River basin. The pollution killed riverine ecosystems at least Template:Convert downstream and impacted the water and irrigation supply of 60% of Zambia's population.[14]
Climate change and disaster risks
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A 2013 report examined the relationship between disasters and poverty world-wide. It concludes that, without concerted action, there could be upwards of 325 million people living in the 49 countries most exposed to the full range of natural hazards and climate extremes in 2040.[15]
Social vulnerability and environmental disaster
According to author Daniel Murphy, different groups can adapt to environmental disasters differently due to social factors such as age, race, class, gender, and nationality.[16] Murphy argues that while developed countries with access to resources that can help mitigate environmental disasters often contribute the most to factors that can increase the risk of said disasters, developing countries experience the impacts of environmental disasters more intensely than their wealthier counterparts.[17] It is often the case that the populations that do not contribute to climate change are not only in geographic locations that experience more environmental disasters, but also have fewer resources to mitigate the impact of the disasters.[16] For example, when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in 2005, many scientists argued that climate change had increased the severity of the hurricane.[18] Although the majority of the U.S. emissions that can contribute to climate change come from industry and transport, the people who were hit hardest by Katrina were not the heads of large companies within the country.[19] Rather, the poor Black communities within Louisiana were the most devastated by the hurricane.[20]
Mitigation efforts
There have been many attempts throughout recent years to mitigate the impact of environmental disasters.[21] Environmental disaster is caused by human activity, so many believe that such disasters can be prevented or have their consequences reduced by human activity as well. Efforts to attempt mitigation are evident in cities such as Miami, Florida, in which houses along the coast are built a few feet off of the ground in order to decrease the damage caused by rising tides due to rising sea-levels.[22] Although mitigation efforts such as those found in Miami might be effective in the short-term, many environmental groups are concerned with whether or not mitigation provides long-term solutions to the consequences of environmental disaster.[22]
See also
File:Nauru satellite.jpgAn aerial image of Nauru in 2002 from the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program. Regenerated vegetation covers 63% of land that was mined[23]
↑ abMurphy, Daniel; Wyborn (January 2015). "Key concepts and methods in social vulnerability and adaptive capacity". Research Gate. Retrieved 2021-02-08.
