Environmental disaster

Environmental disasters show how the impact of humans' alteration of the land has led to widespread and/or long-lasting consequences.

Environmental disasters have historically affected agriculture, wildlife biodiversity, the economy, and human health.

The most common causes include pollution that seeps into groundwater or a body of water, emissions into the atmosphere, and depletion of natural resources, industrial activity, and agricultural practices.

It concludes that, without concerted action, there could be upwards of 325 million people living in the 49 countries most exposed to the full range of natural hazards and climate extremes in 2040.

[17] Although the majority of the U.S. emissions that can contribute to climate change come from industry and transport, the people who were hit hardest by Katrina were not the heads of large companies within the country.

Seabirds killed by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska 's Prince William Sound . The spill in March 1989 dumped approximately 10.8 million US gallons of crude oil into the environment, killing over 250,000 seabirds , 2,800 sea otters , 300 harbor seals , 250 bald eagles , and numerous other wildlife . [ 1 ] The Alaskan fishing industry also suffered tremendously as a result of the spill.
As of 2013, the Fukushima nuclear disaster site remains highly radioactive , with some 160,000 evacuees still living in temporary housing, and some land will be unfarmable for centuries. The difficult cleanup job will take 40 or more years, and cost tens of billions of dollars. [ 12 ] [ 13 ]
An aerial image of Nauru in 2002 from the U.S. Department of Energy's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Program. Regenerated vegetation covers 63% of land that was mined [ 22 ]