<p><em>Is flooding an atmospheric or a geological hazard?</em></p>
<p>From my understanding you would define the above terms as:</p>
<p><strong>Atmospheric hazards</strong> - hazards that are caused or effect weather or climate. For example tornadoes and hurricanes.
<strong>Geological hazards</strong> - hazards that are caused or effect land or tectonic plates. For example earthquakes and landslides.</p>
<p>So what would you class flooding as? It seems to fit either or in some cases neither.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-07T18:35:07.123Z
It should be a hydrologic or oceanic hazard depending on whether we are looking at river flooding or coastal flooding
arkaia
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-07T20:02:31.537Z
Seems like one playing around with language.  In standard sense, a hazard means a hazard to us.  So it wouldn't be "caused or affect...", it would just be "caused by...". Basically the only way geology tends to cause abnormal water movement in our lifetime is with a tsunami.  But the extreme vast majority of flooding is caused by rainfall and tides, which whether you want to group them all as hydrological, or separate them into meteorological and oceanographical sources, regardless flooding is extremely rarely a geological hazard as in a source.
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-07T20:11:16.267Z
(Though of course one extreme tsunami can have overall impact and suffering equal to many many of the other kinds of floods; the very vast majority of us will never experience a tsunami, whereas a great percentage of will at least see some kind of effects from weather/ocean flooding (even if it's just a blocked road or erosion on our property)... but in terms of the biggest impacts, they may be similar in scale... hundreds of thousands have died from tsunamis in the past century, and probably similar from meteorological flooding... much fewer have likely died from SOLELY ocean-caused flooding)
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-07T20:12:52.170Z
So if you are measuring risk to life, I guess they are both viable options as hazards.  But it's all about how you define a hazard in the end.
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-07T20:38:33.323Z
Jökulhlaup are floods triggered by subglacial volcanic eruptions and as such could be classified as "geological", I guess...
Jean-Marie Prival
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-08T00:40:47.800Z
I question the categorization of geology in association with floods. What affect do sandstone, or basalt have on floods? I would have thought topography had a more likely association, such as the shape & size of flood planes; the absence or presence of choke points along the path of rivers, which can act as temporary dams to rivers during very large flow rates from heavy rain. Then again, is topography a function of geology?
Fred
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-09-08T08:50:11.157Z
I may be useful to think of the issue as 'source-pathway-receptor', a model often used for looking at pollutants. The source of flooding is usually meteorological, and the receptor is the impacted ecosystem or population. The pathway between source and receptor is highly influenced by geology( and topography, which is ultimately geology). In the case of Tsunamis, Jökulhlaup etc. both source and pathway have geological triggers.
Andy M
<natural-disasters><flooding>
Is flooding an atmospheric or a geological hazard?
James Ashwood
# Is flooding an atmospheric or a geological hazard?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-09-07)

*Is flooding an atmospheric or a geological hazard?*

From my understanding you would define the above terms as:

**Atmospheric hazards** - hazards that are caused or effect weather or climate. For example tornadoes and hurricanes.
**Geological hazards** - hazards that are caused or effect land or tectonic plates. For example earthquakes and landslides.

So what would you class flooding as? It seems to fit either or in some cases neither.

**Tags:** natural-disasters, flooding

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: It should be a hydrologic or oceanic hazard depending on whether we are looking at river flooding or coastal flooding  
> **username_2**: Seems like one playing around with language.  In standard sense, a hazard means a hazard to us.  So it wouldn't be "caused or affect...", it would just be "caused by...". Basically the only way geology tends to cause abnormal water movement in our lifetime is with a tsunami.  But the extreme vast majority of flooding is caused by rainfall and tides, which whether you want to group them all as hydrological, or separate them into meteorological and oceanographical sources, regardless flooding is extremely rarely a geological hazard as in a source.  
> **username_2**: (Though of course one extreme tsunami can have overall impact and suffering equal to many many of the other kinds of floods; the very vast majority of us will never experience a tsunami, whereas a great percentage of will at least see some kind of effects from weather/ocean flooding (even if it's just a blocked road or erosion on our property)... but in terms of the biggest impacts, they may be similar in scale... hundreds of thousands have died from tsunamis in the past century, and probably similar from meteorological flooding... much fewer have likely died from SOLELY ocean-caused flooding)  
> **username_2**: So if you are measuring risk to life, I guess they are both viable options as hazards.  But it's all about how you define a hazard in the end.  
> **username_3**: Jökulhlaup are floods triggered by subglacial volcanic eruptions and as such could be classified as "geological", I guess...  
> **username_4**: I question the categorization of geology in association with floods. What affect do sandstone, or basalt have on floods? I would have thought topography had a more likely association, such as the shape & size of flood planes; the absence or presence of choke points along the path of rivers, which can act as temporary dams to rivers during very large flow rates from heavy rain. Then again, is topography a function of geology?  
> **username_5**: I may be useful to think of the issue as 'source-pathway-receptor', a model often used for looking at pollutants. The source of flooding is usually meteorological, and the receptor is the impacted ecosystem or population. The pathway between source and receptor is highly influenced by geology( and topography, which is ultimately geology). In the case of Tsunamis, Jökulhlaup etc. both source and pathway have geological triggers.  

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