DRRRM L1-4

• Disaster is a natural or human-made occurrence that brings suffering to the community of people due to damages on physical and psychological health, economic, socio-cultural, and political well-being
• Disasters are often described as a result of the combination of exposure to a hazard, vulnerability, and insufficient capacity or measures to reduce or cope with the potential negative consequences
• Hazard is a threat or harm that has the potential to cause damage to a community
• Two types of hazards are natural hazards (naturally occurring events with destructive effects) and man-made hazards (due to human actions)
• Exposed hazard elements include physical, environmental, social, and economic elements
• Exposure refers to anything in contact with the impact of a hazard, which can cause minor to severe injury or death
• Vulnerability refers to the susceptibility of people and communities to the effects of hazardous events, indicating their weakness in resisting impacts and protecting their life, property, and normal way of living
• Capacity refers to the knowledge and skills of people to resist the effects of hazards and strengthen resilience against hazardous events
• Disaster risk refers to the expectation value of deaths, injuries, and property losses caused by a hazard, encompassing potential losses in lives, health, livelihood, assets, and services over a specified future time period
• Risk factors underlying disasters include poverty, inequality, climate change, unplanned and rapid urbanization, demographic change, non-disaster risk-informed policies, lack of regulation for private disaster risk reduction investment, limited availability of technology, declining ecosystem, and pandemics and epidemic
• Effects of disasters include health impacts (loss of life, physical injury, malnutrition, spread of diseases, psychological effects), physical impacts (damage of property, loss of livelihood, reduced income, economic decline), socio-cultural impacts (halted religious and traditional practices, cultural damages, social order), political impacts (political vacuum, incapability), and biological impacts (environmental degradation, wildlife crisis)
• Vulnerability is situation-specific and hazard-specific
• Vulnerability is the susceptibility or proneness of a person, community, property, or physical asset when exposed to the impact of a hazard
• Resilience is the ability of a system, community, or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate, and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner
• A resilient community takes proactive measures to increase resiliency in the face of hazards through disaster prevention and preparedness
• Types of vulnerability include physical, social, economic, and environmental elements that may be exposed to hazards
• Types of vulnerability can be determined based on the elements exposed to hazards, such as physiological vulnerability, psychological vulnerability, and social vulnerability
• Vulnerability in disasters can be categorized into different types:

  • Psychological vulnerability: susceptibility to mental health disorders
  • Social vulnerability: susceptibility of a community to disruption of normal processes
  • Physical vulnerability: susceptibility of geographical locations, houses, and infrastructure to disasters
  • Economic vulnerability: susceptibility of financial resources to disasters
  • Environmental vulnerability: susceptibility of natural resources to disasters
• Factors to assess the level of vulnerability include:

  • Social dimension: demography, population density maps
  • Economic dimension: business interruptions, loss of jobs, loss of government income
• Factors contributing to vulnerability:

  • Social factors: certain population groups more vulnerable
  • Environmental factors: developing nations face more exposure due to inability to adapt
  • Economic factors: susceptibility of individuals, communities, businesses, and governments to absorb effects of a hazard event
• Hazards are defined as potential damage to man and the environment from natural events like volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and storm surges
• Types of hazards:

  1. Biological hazards

  2. Environmental hazards

  3. Geological/geophysical hazards

  4. Hydrometeorological hazards

  5. Technological hazards

  6. Deliberate human-made hazards
• Methods to assess natural hazards:

  • Quantitative approach: mathematical functions to quantify hazards
  • Qualitative approach: used when data is insufficient for quantitative evaluation
  • Probabilistic approach: estimates probability of each hazard affecting an area
  • Deterministic approach: subjective estimation of probability based on past events
• Hazard mapping:

  • Identifying spatial variation of hazard events or physical conditions
  • Forms one side of the hazard-exposure-vulnerability risk triangle