Economic impacts of natural disasters on the United States Research Paper

Economic impacts of natural disasters on the United States - Research Paper Example Despite falling victims of such calamities for the last decades, efforts to perplex policy formulators have been evidenced. However, the policy makers are uncertain over what can be done to tackle the menace associated with the occurrence of the natural calamities (Yamamura, 2013). There has also been little guidance offered by academics, and this has greatly affected the bitty approaches employed in tackling the issue from a number of disciplines (Alexander). This paper seeks to analyze the economic impacts of natural disasters in the United States. From contemporary literature, the concept of natural disaster is used to refer to the geophysical events that are characterized by a substantial departure from the normal climatic conditions. For instance, the occurrence of a flood that signifies substantial departures from the mediocre rainfall level within a geographical region forms a typical natural calamity. In some instances, the occurrence of these calamities might be predictable and are known to follow some geographical and seasonal patterns as it happens for typhoons and hurricanes (Fang, 2012). Others show vast irregularity in their occurrence, as it takes the case of floods and earthquakes. It is trivial to distinguish between technological and natural hazards. Most technological hazards occur as a result of the activities of human beings. Other social hazards occur which too should be differentiated from natural calamities. Natural calamities have impacted the economy of the United States either positively or negatively for the many instances of their occurrence. In some cases, occurrence of natural disasters leads to infrastructural improvements and the adoption of better and improved technologies in the event of their occurrence. For instance, in a study discussing the earthquake that took place in Alaska in 1964, which provided for a chance of modernization and upgrade of the