Understanding Risk in an Evolving World : Emerging Best Practices in Natural Disaster Risk Assessment

Abstract

The 10-year-long Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) set out to substantially reduce impacts from natural disasters by 2015. Despite efforts toward this goal, economic losses from natural disasters are rising from US$50 billion each year in the 1980s, to just under $200 billion each year in the last decade (World Bank and GFDRR 2013). The economic losses sustained by lower- and middle-income countries alone over the last 30 years represent a full third of all total development assistance in the same time period, offsetting tremendous efforts by governments, multilateral organizations, and other actors. As the HFA period ends against a backdrop of challenging disaster risk trends, and consultations toward a post-2015 framework move forward, it is important to reflect on the role of disaster risk assessments in achieving disaster and climate resilience, and on the contributions risk assessments have made over the last 10 years. Understanding Risk in an Evolving World: Emerging Best Practices in Natural Disaster Risk Assessment, which was developed to inform post-HFA discussions and the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR),1 reports on the current state of the practice of risk assessment and on advances made over the last decade.