Events or processes such as wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, and floods that have the potential to cause adverse effects on human lives, infrastructure, and the environment.
Following common terminology of natural hazards, risk can be defined as “the potential for adverse consequences or impacts due to the interaction between one or more natural or human-induced hazards, exposure of humans, infrastructure and ecosystems, and systems’ vulnerabilities” [1]. The three most commonly identified are hazard, exposure and vulnerability [1:1] [2] [3], with risk being the combination of the three; however, other authors suggest alternative formulations, such as Thywissen (2006)[4] who considers four risk dimensions: hazard, vulnerability, exposure and resilience (other studies also consider coping capacity [5]).
“Hazard, i.e., the process, phenomenon or human activity that carries the potential to cause loss of life, injury or other health impacts, property damage, social and economic disruption or environmental degradation. Hazards can be natural (e.g., wildfires, earthquakes, droughts, floods) or anthropogenic (e.g., oil spills, terrorist attacks) in origin and can be characterized by their location, likelihood of occurrence, intensity or magnitude, duration, and extent” [1:2]. Hazard therefore implies estimating the probability and intensity that a certain negative event occurs (Danger in FirEUrisk).
“Exposure represents the people and assets at risk of potential loss or that may suffer damage to hazard impact. It covers several dimensions like the physical (e.g., building stock and infrastructure), the social (e.g., humans and communities) and the economic dimensions” [6]. For other authors, it refers to the extent to which a value, resource, asset or geographic area may be subject to or come into contact with a potential source of harm [7]. Therefore, exposure assessment implies the inventory of elements in an area in which hazard events may occur and during the time they may occur. Exposure analysis is the process of identifying the exposures to which various resources or assets could be subjected (Exposure in FirEUrisk).
Vulnerability encompasses a variety of concepts and elements including sensitivity or susceptibility to harm and lack of capacity to cope and adapt [1:3]. In other words, vulnerability is “the characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard” [8]. While most natural hazards are beyond human control, vulnerability can be modified by human actions, either increasing (vulnerable societies) or decreasing it (resilient societies) (Vulnerability in FirEUrisk).
The ability of a community, system, or asset to resist, absorb, accommodate, adapt to, transform, and recover from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient manner.
The ability of people, organizations, and systems to use available skills and resources to face and manage adverse conditions, emergencies, or disasters.
Tools and methodologies used to evaluate risk conditions, considering variables related to the probability of the event to occur and its potential impacts to provide a holistic understanding of risk in specific areas. These characterizations support decision-making processes for wildfire management and mitigation. Growing concern about the impacts that natural hazards may have on human lives and the built environment has motivated work on a variety of international programs focused on risk assessment and mitigation. For example, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) recently implemented the Sendai Framework [9], which is a major international agreement advocating for effective risk management and disaster risk reduction. The Sendai Framework highlights the crucial importance of the development and application of analytical frameworks to understand and quantify risk. Risk assessment is the process of integrating information about the three dimensions: hazard, exposure and vulnerability. It should consider a wide range of factors, affecting both the physical phenomena (weather, geology, vegetation cover, topography, seismic activity, etc.) and the human dimensions that can potentially mitigate or increase the damaging effects of the event. Risk assessment entails understanding the nature, sources and causes of risk, as well as the valuation of magnitude, extent and duration. The magnitude of risk is sometimes conceived as the values at stake times the likelihood of occurrence. In this regard, risk management greatly benefits from analysing historical occurrence [7:1].
Decisions made based on the assessment of risk to reduce unwanted impacts. According to the Sendai Framework’s guiding principles and priorities for action, Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) must be accomplished through international, regional, subregional, transboundary and bilateral cooperation, and also shared between central governments, relevant national authorities, sectors and stakeholders. It requires a multi-hazard and inclusive risk-informed decision-making approach. The priorities for action include understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance to manage it, investing in risk reduction to increase resilience and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and recovery [9:1].
The diverse groups who use risk information, including first responders, landowners, land managers, civil society organisations, and the general public.
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Thywissen, K. (2006). Components of risk: a comparative glossary. Bonn: UNU-EHS. ↩︎
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UNISDR (2017). Technical guidance for monitoring and reporting on progress in achieving the global targets of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations, https://www.undrr.org/publication/technical-guidance-monitoring-and-reporting-progress-achieving-global-targets-sendai. ↩︎ ↩︎