CONCEPT: Hazard

Hazard: A hazard is a potential source of harm to individuals, groups or a wide array of processes, systems or ‘things’ of crucial value to us as individuals, groups, communities, organizations, institutions or society. A hazard is a ‘benign’ threat ready to ‘happen’ at any 'opportune' time. As Kasperson and Pijawka (1985: 8) see it, “Hazards may be broadly defined as threats to humans and what they value – life, well-being, material goods, and environment”. 

In a way, a hazard exists "out there" -- linked to a sort of trip-wire. It becomes a risk as we approach and encounter it within its 'sphere of influence' -- or range of 'attack'. In many instances, certainly not all, we can 'contain' or remain safe from that sphere or range of attack simply by not tripping the wire. That is, by staying away -- at a safe distance, or 'completely'. And yet, 'completely' is a relative term here.

A useful example in this context is the hazard that landmines pose. They are a hazard to those (herders, farmers, hunter-gatherers, children-at-play and the like) who live in the vicinity of mined areas, and a risk to those among them who actually venture into those (marked or unmarked) areas -- as in Angola and Mozambique in the recent past -- or where floods have shifted the deadly weapons of war to areas that state officials, citizens and aid workers can only guess at and attempt to re-map. Of course, such a shift turns what was hitherto a 'manageable' hazard into a new and potentially catastrophic risk for any victims.