The knowledge of hazardous processes and the ability to predict their occurrence in terms of intensity and frequency and their interaction are important requirements to quantify their impact on society. This module focuses on the analysis of the risk, its evaluation, and its use in decision making for different disaster management phases.
The assessment of risk is a very multi-disciplinary field, that requires knowledge on hazards (types, frequency, intensity, modeling methods), elements-at-risk (types, classification, data collection, quantification), vulnerabilities (physical, social, environmental, institutional), capacities (to predict, cope, and recover) and resilience. Risk could be expressed as qualitative classes, risk matrices, or quantified as expected losses (e.g. monetary values, population).
Qualitative and/or quantitative risk assessment is used as a basis for different types of decision-making by various stakeholders, with different objectives: evaluating different risk reduction planning alternatives; link meteorological forecasts with loss estimation in impact-based forecasting; analyze post-disaster reconstruction alternatives in order to “build-back-better”, and increase the resilience. From the perspective of a continuously changing world, driving forces such as climate change, socio-economic development, population growth, and land-use change will put pressure on society, and require that risk is analyzed for future scenarios in order to plan wisely.