Working on Datasets Students Worksheet

Transcription

1 Working on Datasets Students Worksheet Dataset No. 2: Natural Disasters Draft September 12th, 2017 Haifa University, Israel: Anna Trostianitser Iddo Gal Porto University, Portugal: Pedro Campos Sonia Teixeira Introduction: As part of the class about environment and climate change, you were presented with the task to inquire the following dataset and run the presentation about it to the class. This worksheet contains the highlights and questions that your teacher advised you to ask yourself while working on current dataset. Background: Natural phenomena may, or may not, influence the human life that is subject to them, such as epidemics, weather, natural disasters, etc. In general, natural phenomena appear most of the times related with an unusual, astonishing, or disastrous event from a human perspective. Natural disasters can be triggered by several phenomena such as floods, landslides, erosion, earthquakes, hurricanes, storms, among others. In addition, several studies indicate that current climate variability, with a tendency towards global warming, is associated with an increase in climatic extremes. Considering all of this, the intensity of natural phenomena, the accelerated urbanization process in recent decades through the world, has led to the growth of cities often in areas that are not suitable for occupation, contribute for increasing the danger and risk situations to natural disasters. Variables and further information: Natural disasters dataset 1

2 Name NaturalDisaster Source Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters - Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) Available in: Year Unity of analysis Region Number of registers 4254 Number of variables 10 The data file that is enclosed with this worksheet represents the rate of natural disasters provided by the Center for Research in the Epidemiology of Disasters Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT). It contains the analysis of last 115 years ( ) of disasters throughout the globe according to specific regions and contains more than 4200 sites. Although, for this task, only 10 the most important variables were selected, involving region, disaster type, occurrence, number of homeless people, total of deaths, people affected, injured and etc., as presented in the table below. Variables: Name Meaning Type Type Year Year Qualitative Ordinal Region Region Qualitative Nominal Disaster Type Disaster Type Qualitative Nominal Occurrence Occurrence Quantitative Discrete Total of deaths Total of deaths Quantitative Discrete Affected Affected Quantitative Discrete Injured Injured Quantitative Discrete Homeless Homeless as a consequence of the Quantitative Discrete disaster Total affected Total affected(affected + injured + Quantitative Discrete homeless) Total damage Total damage ( 000$) Quantitative Discrete 2

3 Homeless variable represents the Number of people whose house is destroyed or heavily damaged and therefore need shelter after an event. In this document I refer to the variable of Homeless as people who lost their homes because of the disaster. Total affected represents the sum of the injured, affected and left homeless after a disaster. For more information, go to the following link: You may browse to the link below and see the way real data is presented. Inquire it a bit before proceeding further. Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters - Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) Available in: *In order to see the data, you may need to register. Please use the program inzight and Tableau to understand the data and answer the questions. Link to download inzight: Link to download Tableau: Questions: These questions contain different ranks of difficulty and listed from the easiest and the most concrete, though the medium level of difficulty, and to the most broad and fuzzy ones that require deep understanding and ability to conclude. 1) What kind of disaster is the deadliest (Total deaths)? 3

4 2) What is the region with most of homeless people? 3) Which natural disaster brings the most damage? In wich region? 4) a) Which natural disaster is the most frequent in your region? When was the last time it happened? Answer according to the dataset. b) Search the internet for data about this specific natural disaster in your region. When it happened? c) Compare your experience in seraching the data: Was it easier to find the data in dataset or in the search site? Please explain. 5) Friend of yours says that the natural disasters will never end and they occur in different places every year at the same rate. But you think that thanks to technology, some disasters could be prevented therefore, there should be less 4

5 disasters with each year. To prove your opinion, run the following test: Year x Region x Disaster type. 6) What tendency about natural disasters can you see as the years go by? Why is it so? Propose at least 2 possible reasons and explain your opinion. (Suggested test by Porto team: Year x Region x Disaster type (Histograms/ Bar charts ex. Tableau) 7) According to the News reports, Western Europe suffered a lot of damage because of wildfire, especially Portugal and Spain. In which region, the wildfire left people homeless the most in the recent decade? (Suggested test by Porto team: Homeless x Disaster type x Region (Bar charts ex. Tableau() 5

6 8) What is the distribution of the variable Year? What was the worst year in the sense of natural disasters? 9) Add the variable Occurrence. How does the distribution change? Try changing the axes to see the picture more clearly. 10) Add another variable Disaster Type. Which natural disaster becomes more frequent with each year? (Run the test Year x Disaster Type x Occurrence.) Explain your answer. (Tableau is a good alternative to cross the three variables) 6

7 11) The magazine that has the constant rubric about the climate change mentioned South America as one of the regions that struggles with extreme temperatures. Run the test to check if it is true and explain your answer. 12) If the proposition in the previous question is true, what do you think the governments of countries in this region need to do to help people to deal with this kind of disaster? If not, how the government might maintain the current status, to keep it this way? 7

8 13) Compare the total damage of North America with total damage of South Asia. What is the difference in the frequent meanings? What are the types of the disasters? What can you conclude? List and explain at least 2 possibilities. 14) According to the graph from the previous question, what can be done to prevent such things from happening? 15) As part of your presentation in class, what questions would you ask your students to check their understanding? List at least 2 questions and explain your choice. 8