DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS Disaster: A serious disruption of society, causing widespread human, material or environmental losses that exceed the capacity of the affected society to cope with unaided.

Hazard A hazard is a phenomenon that has the potential to adversely affect human, plant and animal life to the extent of causing a disaster Eg Floods, drought, earth quake, conflict

VULNERABILITY Vulnerability is the degree to which people, aquatic life, wild life, livestock, are susceptible to loss, damage, suffering and deaths in the event of a hazard

RELATIONSHIP DISASTER = HAZARD X VULNERABILITY

DISASTER PREPAREDNESS Preparedness is about putting in place advance measures to establish community capacities and mechanisms to minimize adverse impacts of disasters if and when they do occur.

MITIGATION  Measures to lessen the seriousness of disasters or the potential of a disaster to cause an emergency, or the scale of an emergency, which is already under way  The goal of mitigation is to eliminate or reduce the long-term risk of property damage or loss of life after a disaster.

PREVENTION  Proactively stopping disaster from occurring  Not very practical- natural hazards, vulnerability etc

Disaster Risk Reduction Minimizing vulnerabilities and disaster risks throughout a society, to avoid [prevention] or to limit [mitigation and preparedness], the adverse impacts of hazards, within the broad context of sustainable development