Week 7 Course Materials

Assignments due

• Week 7 Team Roles: all roles but Reporter due on Canvas before your quiz section; Reporter notes/summary due by Friday 11:59 p.m.

Hydrosphere L3: Fluvial Geomorphology

Building on what you learned about Earth's water cycle and weather cycle from Tuesday's RAQ, we will discuss fluvial geomorphology - the ways that water systems create landforms and impact Earth's surface.

Hydrosphere L3 Fluvial Geomorphology slides Download Hydrosphere L3 Fluvial Geomorphology slides

Hydrosphere QS2: Mangroves

This week's readings consider the relationships between natural hazards and risk by looking at the case study of mangrove forest ecosystems and coastal flooding. Some questions to consider: how do the hydrosphere and biosphere (ecosystems) interact with each other in the Indonesia flooding & mangrove forest case study? How do human activities play a role in co-producing flooding risk in this case? What might be some other examples where human activities are impacting natural hydrological and/or ecological systems, thereby co-producing increased risks?

Read:

• "Risks and Hazards" in Robbins, Hintz & Moore (2014) Environment & Society: A Critical Introduction. Wiley Blackwell.  Download "Risks and Hazards" in Robbins, Hintz & Moore (2014) Environment & Society: A Critical Introduction. Wiley Blackwell. 
  • You can also access the E-book through UW Libraries here: LINK Links to an external site.
• Beck and Menendez. (2020) "Protecting mangroves can prevent billions of dollars in global flooding damage every year." The Conversation. Links to an external site.
  
  • If desired, you can read the original research paper this article is about here: LINK Links to an external site.

Watch:

• "Indonesia: At least 44 killed by flash floods and landslides." Links to an external site. Al Jazeera English (Youtube, 2 minutes)
• "Trying to revive and protect Indonesia's mangroves." Al Jazeera English Links to an external site. (Youtube, 3 minutes)
• "How mangrove shelter belts are protector of coastline during tsunami, cyclone and storms" Links to an external site. (Youtube, 20 seconds)

Hydrosphere L4: Hurricane Katrina Case Study

We will build from our discussions of hurricanes from last week and fluvial landscapes from the last class to discuss how efforts to 'tame' the Mississippi River, a prominent meandering river, co-produced New Orleans' vulnerability to risks of flooding and hurricane activity. We will also apply the concepts of adaptive capacity, vulnerability, and resilience to better contextualize the uneven impacts Katrina had on different communities within New Orleans. We will try to answer the question: was Hurricane Katrina a natural disaster?

Hydrosphere L4 Hurricane Katrina slides Download Hydrosphere L4 Hurricane Katrina slides