El Salvador Final Assessment 

El Salvador is known as the Land of Volcanoes. The first main hazard I consider to be the most dangerous would be volcanoes. El Salvador has experiences significant volcanic activity. Although the last eruption was in 1917, volcano San Salvador has the potential to cause major harm to the country’s capital. The capital lies just below the volcano’s slopes. Volcano San Salvador has an elevation of 1,893 m. Volcano San Miguel  last erupted in 2002 and is one of the most active volcanoes in the country, it has an elevation of 2,120 m. Other active volcanoes include Conchaguita, Ilopango, Izalco, and Santa Ana. There are 22 volcanoes in El Salvador. The total population living within 30 kilometers is 5,810,382, which makes the percentage of population living within 30 kilometers from a volcano is 92. The volcanoes are part of the circum-pacific ring of fire and they are related to the subduction of the ocean Coco's Plate under the Caribbean tectonic plate. My recommendation to address the hazard of volcanoes would be to keep a very close watch at all times. Any indication of close to an indication, evacuate immediately. 92% of the country’s population lives within 18 miles of these volcanoes. For many health and safety reasons there has to be monitoring at all times. There are a lot of information that is needed to know regarding health consequences when eruptions do happen, I would make sure everyone is informed and knows exactly what to do in order to secure their health and safety. I would target the closest areas to the volcanoes and work my way towards the farthest. The goal would be to get the closest ones to safety because they are at most risk.

In the last hundred years, El Salvador has had 13 major earthquakes. The second main hazard I would consider to be really dangerous would be earthquakes. El Salvador has frequent and sometimes destructive earthquakes. Preventionweb.net presents graphs with different rates related to disasters. The mortality graph shows that 40.3% is because of earthquakes, that is the biggest percentage in this graph. Combined economic losses,86.1% is because of earthquakes. Annual loss due to earthquakes is 250 million dollars. Earthquake’s contribution to average annual loss is 95.2. El Salvador is located at the western part of the Caribbean Plate, where it is subducting the Cocos plate. Subduction zones like this one are very complex and produce many earthquakes from multiple sources. Intraplate earthquakes occur within the crust of the overriding Caribbean plate. Deeper intraplate earthquakes occur within the subducting Cocos plate. The earthquake sequence in the El Salvador has involved intraplate faulting in both the Cocos and Caribbean plates. My recommendation to address this hazard of earthquakes would be to assure everyone knows the routine and where to go in case of an earthquake occurring. I would make sure there are emergency kits in most buildings, along with educational and required courses of information to secure safety. I would first target areas that have had the most earthquakes and that are in a dangerous environment vulnerable to disaster during earthquakes.

If I were to build a house in El Salvador I would definitely stay away from the cities and towns that are close to volcanoes to be safe in case of any eruptions, including the capital city although it is a beautiful attraction.  I would also stay away from the ocean, in case of tsunamis or ocean related hazards. With that being said I would pick one of the small towns around where my mother grew up, away from the dangerous hazards. Towns like San Francisco Gotera, Sabenatas, and Santa Rosa de Lima area,

References:

http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/el-salvador.html

http://www.preventionweb.net/countries/slv/data/

Coastal Problems

Water is the biggest issue that this country faces today.  100% of water in El Salvador is contaminated by faeces and minerals, even the bottled water. This is because 90% of companies in El Salvador have no control over their waste water, so if they want to treat it, they can’t. As a result only 12% of water dumped in rivers is treated. Also, families throw their rubbish directly into the rivers, compounding the problem. This is due to a lack of education, particularly about environmental issues and a failing on the government’s part to implement a free trash disposal service. The people most affected by the contaminated water are the elderly and young people. 500 children die a year from diseases caused by tainted water.

Another huge factor is mining. There are currently 32 different mining projects in El Salvador. These companies arrive solely to exploit the country, extract the precious minerals using highly toxic chemicals which is then dumped into pools with no treatment. If there is ever an accident with this toxic water and it gets into people’s drinking water then the outcomes would be dire. 

Deforestation in El Salvador has had serious environmental, social, and economic impacts. Today over 50 percent of El Salvador is not even suitable for food cultivation, and much of the country is plagued with severe soil erosion. Denuded hillsides leave the country vulnerable to devastating mudslides, landslides resulting from a series of storms killed more than 50 and required the evacuation of more than 34,000 residents. Degraded forest areas are more susceptible to fires—in 1998 fires caused more than $172 million in damage to forests and agricultural plots. Today most deforestation in El Salvador results from the country's high population that relies heavily on the collection of fuelwood and subsistence hunting and agriculture. Although the government has protected areas of forest, forestry laws go unenforced due to lack of funds and management. In total, El Salvador lost 20.5 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2005. The country's deforestation rate has increased by 18 percent since the close of the 1990s. Lack of money, and education prevents the people from preventing these issues. 

http://www.progressio.org.uk/blog/empowered-blog/el-salvador-problem-water

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/20elsalvador.htm

Extreme weather 

Damage caused by extreme weather events during 2009 and 2010 in Central America mean that climate change is now a high-level policy priority, especially for the government of El Salvador. The President of El Salvador, last year on July 20th, in an extraordinary meeting of presidents that was convened in San Salvador, launched the intervention process. Climate Change was put as the number one issue for the region. The government of El Salvador's position, which mirrors that of other Central American countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Honduras, is due to the fact that anthropogenic (human caused) climate change is impacting the planet more than ever, and scientists expect it to worsen. El Salvador, has been dramatically affected by severe weather events including extreme rain events and flooding from tropical storms and hurricanes that are increasing in both frequency and intensity. Congressman Valencia is also calling for all institutions of the government to incorporate their policies and laws towards addressing issues of adaptation to climate change so that government resources can be invested into the functions of adapting. In Central America, there is a very close linkage between climate change and security. If These problems are not addressed and not seriously put into action, the losses, the diversion of resources simply to attend to emergencies, will become so large that these countries won’t have any resources to invest in health, education, and so on.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/03/201132141536987194.html
http://cdkn.org/project/el-salvador-national-climate-change-strategy/

Sinkholes

Every website I searched for sinkholes in El Salvador, the feed was all about Guatemala. I found this article which is somewhat connected to El Salvador. Sinkholes are natural depressions that can form when water-saturated soil and other particles become too heavy and cause rooks of existing voids in the soil to collapse. A storm sewer may have been slowly saturating the surrounding soil for a long time before tropical storm Agatha added to the inundation. Honduras and El Salvador were other countries affected by this storm taking the death toll to over 175.

This is the sinkhole in Guatemala caused by the storm that also affected El Salvador. 

http://prasoondiwakar.com/wordpress/news/hole-in-the-earth-guatemala-sinkhole

Landslides

Rainfalls and earthquakes have shown to be important triggers for landslides in El Salvador. The combination of these factors are critical in trigger thresholds and in controlling mechanisms. On January 13 and February 13 of the year 2001, the earthquakes that happened in El Salvador left around 1,000 death due to the landslides induced. The landslides induced during these events were associated with susceptible slopes highly intervened by anthropogenic activities. Rainfall intensity and earthquake magnitude alone doens't reflect the effects on landslide characteristics. Slop susceptibility also controls both spatial and temporal distribution of slides. Slope susceptibility to failure is what influences landslide characteristics.Material related to landslides in El Salvador is volcanic and residual soils. Natural slopes in volcanic soils are commonly nearly vertical and can reach several meter in height. Earthquake and rainfall landslides in El Salvador start as disrupted slides and falls in residual, alluvial, volcanic-ash, and volcanic-rock deposits. El Salvador is regularly affected by extreme natural events such as flooding, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. There is reconstruction and disaster prevention in El Salvador. This includes measures taken to protect infrastructure, measures for organizational development and training and equipping village emergency committees. They have reduced their vulnerability to threats caused by extreme natural phenomena such as flooding and landslides. 

References: 

• http://dc.engconfintl.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=geohazards
• https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/21495.html

Volcanoes

In El Salvador there are 22 volcanoes. They are part of the circum-pacific ring of fire and they are related to the subduction of the ocean Coco's Plate under the Caribbean tectonic plate. One of those is Chaparrastique Volcano and it's considered one of the most active with 26 eruptions in the past 500 years. 

Apaneca is part of E-W stratovolcanoes in western El Salvador. Cerro Singuil is a large scoria cone SE of Volcan Chingo in the interior valley of El Salvador. This volcano has a well preserved summit crater and it belongs to a young volcanic field of cinder cones and explosion craters. Izalco was born in 1770 and is the youngest. Fumarolic activity increased in 1999. Santa Ana is a stratovolcano of San Salvador city. It is the highest volcano and one of the most active. Coatepeque is a 7x10 km wide caldera. A caldera is formed by the collapse of several overlapping stratovolcanoes E of Santa Ana volcano. San Diego is a young volcano located at the border between El Salvador and Guatemala. San Salvador is a massive stratovolcano NW if El Salvador City. A small seismic swarn occurred August 1999 and the last eruption was in 1917. Cinotepeque is a group of 4 young cinder cones on both sides of Rio Lempa. Guazapa is an eroded basaltic stratovolcano.  Ilopango is a 8x11 km wide caldera. The last eruption was 1879-1880 and it constructed a new lava dome which emerged above the caldera. San Vicente is a twin-peaked stratovolcano SE of Lake Iloopango. It's the second highest volcano. In 2009 Hurricande Ida caused large mudflows from the flanks of San Vicente. Apastepeque is a young volcano fiels 8 km N of San Vicente. It contains 24 closely cinder cones, lava flows, lava domes, and lava maars. Taburete is a basaltic stratovolcano located SW end of a cluster of volcanoes between San Vicente and San Miguel volcanoes. Tacapa is a complex basaltic stratovolcano located NW end of a cluster of stratovolcanoes between San Vicente and San Miguel volcanoes. Usulutan is a stratovolcano at the SE end of the cluster of volcanoes between San Miguel and San Vicente. Chinameca is a small stratovolcano next to San Miguel volcano. San Miguel is a symmetrical stratovolcano and one of the most active volcanoes of the country. There was small eruptions in 1995, and 1997. A large eruption 2000-2001, gas and steam emisions with some ash in 2002, and 2002-2006 it was restless with periods of increased seismic activities. Laguna Aramuaca is a lake filled explosion crater 10 km SE of San Miguel and might have formed less than 10,000 years.  Conchagua is an eroded stratovolcano on the western side of the Gulf of Fonseca. Conchaguita is at the SE tip of El Salvador. It is a sharp-topped cone with a 100 m wide summit crater at the southern end.

El Salvador's Emergency Plan of  Action is to immediately evacuate the surrounding cities. The Red Cross assists, and provides shelter during the response phase. Families are trained in health care, hygiene, and sanitation because of the effects of  the volcanic eruption. Red Cross responds immediately by deploying volunteers to the affected area to assist with the evacuation to collective centers and provide pre hospital care with support of ambulances. If needed immediate assistance is asked of other countries. 

I found this clip on Youtube, enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X62jC0kmRLs

• http://reliefweb.int/report/el-salvador/el-salvador-volcanic-eruption-emergency-plan-action-epoa-dref-operation-mdrsv00-1
• http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/el-salvador.html
• http://gocentralamerica.about.com/od/elsalvadorguide/p/El-Salvador-Volcanoes.htm

Tsunamis
Tsunami's are just larger versions of regular waves, they have a trough and a crest. They consist not of moving water but movement of energy through water. The energy in normal waves comes from the wind, tsunamis are caused by energy originated underwater from a volcanic eruption, a submarine landslide, or an earthquake on the ocean floor. Tsunamis can move hundreds of miles per hour, and builds in height once they reaches shore.

El Salvador is an environment of high stress and and large earthquakes which makes the coast vulnerable to tsunamis.  Between 1859 and 2002, 11 major events have struck El Slavador. Two of these events caused massive destruction and deaths. Five were triggered locally, three regionally, and three by distant earthquakes in the Chilean, Columbian, and Aleutian subduction zones. In El Salvador, earthquakes of magnitudes of 7 or higher, having epicenters offshore, or onshore could trigger tsunamis. Tsunami hazards indicate that the entire Pacific Coast of Central America is at risk for tsunamis. Particularly there are nine communitiesexposed to the risk of tsunamis and they are: La Union, San Rafael de Tasjera, El Zapote, Marcelino, La Libertad, El Majahual, and Acajulta, Barra de Santiago and Garita Palmera.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx9vPv-T51I
• http://specialpapers.gsapubs.org/content/375/435.abstract
• https://books.google.com/books?id=j52TYoUOUjMC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=tsunami+el+salvador+hazard&source=bl&ots=OQiK5ytk6P&sig=oik7XtMX62AnRc3b_gN9SxoW-_Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEMQ6AEwCmoVChMIn5GIusH9xwIVApqICh2hgwFj#v=onepage&q=tsunami%20el%20salvador%20hazard&f=false
• http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/13/2927/2013/nhess-13-2927-2013.pdf

Earthquakes
In the last hundred years, El Salvador has had 13 major earthquakes. In 2001, one of the greatest earthquakes that has hit El Salvador happened. The Richter scale measured it at a 7.6 magnitude. The earthquake struck with the epicenter at 60 miles and it happened southwest of San Miguel. A month after another earthquake hit El Salvador. Together, these two earthquakes did major damage. Killing 944, injuring 5,565, and a total of 1,364,160 victims. This earthquake was one of the most powerful earthquakes to hit Central America in 20 years. The earthquakes occurred within the Cocos-Caribbean subduction zone. El Salvador is located at the western part of the Caribbean Plate, where it is subducting the Cocos plate. Subduction zones like this one are very complex and produce many earthquakes from multiple sources. Intraplate earthquakes occur within the crust of the overriding Caribbean plate. Deeper intraplate earthquakes occur within the subducting Cocos plate. The earthquake sequence in the El Salvador has involved intraplate faulting in both the Cocos and Caribbean plates.

The Pacific Disaster Center has chosen El Salvador to participate in a National Disaster Preparedness  Assessment because of it's diverse hazard profile. El Salvador is at risk for volcanic activity, earthquakes, flooding, and landslides. El Salvador also has strong disaster management culture, with active civil military preparedness and response engagements. 

Reference Centre for Institutional Disaster Preparedness established at the Salvadorean Red Cross Society in 2005, with the support of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. It was created to strengthen disaster preparedness and vulnerability reduction programs for the seven Central American National Societies.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/13/newsid_2554000/2554149.stm

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqarchives/year/2001/2001_01_13_seis.php

http://geogon.wikispaces.com/Earthquakes

http://www.pdc.org/UserFiles/File/NDPBA_ElSalvador.pdf

http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/americas/el-salvador/reference-centre-for-institutional-disaster-preparedness-in-el-salvador-58240/

Plate Boundaries 

El Salvador is one of the most active, earthquake vulnerable areas in the Western Hemisphere. The country is in between two active tectonic plate movements. On the southern part of El Salvador, Coco's plates pushes under the Caribbean Plate, which causes frequent earthquakes near the coast. As the ocean floor is forced down, the rocks melt, and that causes volcanoes and geysers. On the northern side of El Salvador, the North American Tectonic Plate pushes one edge of the Caribbean Plate, creating a major fault. This fault causes earthquakes in the northern part of El Salvador. There are three seismic source, intra-slab earthquakes within Coco's plate, crustal earthquakes within the upper plates, and interplate earthquakes along the boundary. 10 of the 16 earthquakes damaging to San Salvador are associated with the volcanic belt, and the other 6 to Coco's plate. El Salvador has more "Ring of Fire" volcanoes than any other central american country. 

• Lifeline Performance of El Salvador Earthquakes of January 13 and February 13, 2001 (Google Books)

• "IGCSE Plate Tectonics and GCSE Plate Tectonics."Greenfieldgeography.03Sept2015
• "El Salvador."Nationalencyclopedia.03sept2015

A natural hazard is a natural process and event that is a threat to human life and property surrounding. The process and events that occur are not a hazard themselves, but they become a hazard because of human use of land. Severe weather and climate events, floods, and wildfires are all examples of natural hazards.

A disaster is a hazardous event that occurs over a short time span and happens within a defined area. A disaster is different from a natural hazard because for an event to be considered a disaster it has to meet a certain criteria. A disaster has to kill 10 or more people, 100 or more are affected by the event, emergency state is declared, and international assistance is requested. If any of these four occur, it is then considered a disaster. A disaster can be floods, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. An example is the Indian Ocean earthquake and Tsunami that occurred in 2004.

A catastrophe is an event that causes great damage, requires a lot of money, and a long time to recover. It is bigger than a natural hazard and a disaster. A catastrophe affects the life of millions of people around the world. An example is Hurricane Katrina in 2005, happened 10 years ago and recovery still continues in some parts of New Orleans.