GE 4150/5150 - Natural Hazards

Fall 2006

Instructor: G. Bluth, 204 Dow (gbluth@mtu.edu)

Lecture: MW: 9:05 - 9:55

Lab: F: 9:05 – 9:55 or 10:05 – 10:55 (partially self-paced)

Office Hours: by appointment

Course Overview and Objectives: We will focus on three important types of natural hazards, and analyze their causes, impacts, and mitigation strategies. We will learn about agencies in the United States which are responsible for hazards planning, warnings, and information. Technical skills feature hazard mapping using ArcGIS, a widely used GIS software package, and Landsat Thematic Mapper data. Multidisciplinary reading and analysis are a large part of this course; material will come from books, journals, technical papers, and the Internet.

Assignments and Homework: Any writing assignments must be typed, double-space, and are due in class one week later unless noted otherwise. No late assignments accepted.

Required Texts: none

Prerequisites: GE2000, GE2100 or GE2200, and junior or senior standing for GE4150; graduate standing for GE5150.

Grading:

Lab Assignments: 50% (includes the term project)

Homeworks and Class Assignments: 20%

Midterm and Final: 30%

Schedule of Lecture Topics	Lab
Week 1: Hazard Intro and Responses	Intro to Remote Sensing
Week 2: Politics of Hazards	Quantitative Remote Sensing
Week 3: Hazard Warning Systems	Guatemala Hazards
Week 4: Presidential Disaster Declaraions	Band Math - NDVI
Week 5: Volcanoes: aircraft; PF’s	DEM’s
Week 6: Volcanoes: ashfall; UV camera	DLG’s
Week 7: Volcanoes: seismic; lahars	Attribute Tables
Week 8: Volcanoes: tornillos; Galeras	Data Sources
Week 9: Midterm; Seismic activity	Hazard zone mapping
Week 10: Seismic case studies	Error Analysis
Week 11: Seismic mitigation	Hazard mapping project
Week 12: Flood hazards and mitigation	Hazard mapping project
Week 13: Flood case studies	Hazard mapping project
Week 14: Flood case studies	Hazard mapping project