Disaster Risk Assessment

From Open Risk Manual

Definition

Disaster Risk Assessment is a qualitative or quantitative approach to determine the nature and extent of Disaster Risk by analysing potential hazards and evaluating existing conditions of exposure and vulnerability that together could harm people, property, services, livelihoods and the environment on which they depend.

Disaster risk assessments include:

  • the identification of hazards;
  • a review of the technical characteristics of hazards such as their location, intensity, frequency and probability;
  • the analysis of exposure and vulnerability, including the physical, social, health, environmental and economic dimensions; and
  • the evaluation of the effectiveness of prevailing and alternative coping capacities with respect to likely risk scenarios.

References