1. Assessing Natural Hazard Risk in Urban Areas Henrike Brecht Louisiana State University Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

2. Why a Risk Index? Identifying Risk: Key element in disaster reduction Enables informed policy making Index: Summarizes a body of knowledge Easy to understand Facilitates comparisons Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

3. Urban Risk Index Follow-up of World Bank Disaster Hotspots Multi-hazard index All cities worldwide with more than 100,000 inhabitants Outcome: Relative risks of mortality economic losses Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

4. What is Risk? Risk = Hazard x Exposed Elements x Vulnerability Hazard Derived from historic hazard data Exposed Elements City Population City GDP Vulnerability Population vulnerability: derived from historic death tolls Economic vulnerability: derived from historic economic losses Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

5. Data Inputs: Hazards Five major hazards Vector data was gridded, raster data was resampled at 1 km resolution. Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

6. Data Inputs: Cyclones Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

7. Data Inputs: Landslides Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

8. Data Inputs: Floods Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

9. Data Inputs: Earthquakes Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

10. Data Inputs: Exposed Elements City population numbers (Henderson) City GDP (World Bank) City footprints: GRUMP (Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project) by CIESIN Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

11. Data Inputs: Exposed Elements Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

12. Data Inputs: Vulnerability Not based on social vulnerability indicators Damage rates by hazard EM-DAT (Emergency Disaster Database) Population vulnerability: historic death tolls per hazard Economic vulnerability: economic loss rate per hazard Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

13. Outcomes For each city Mortality risk index Economic risk index Relative risk levels Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

14. Earthquake Mortality Risk Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

15. Conclusion Index is a comprehensive summary and enables comparisons Guides policy making and resource allocation Index creation is impeded due to lack of accurate data Macro analysis which does not replace careful risk assessments for cities Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

16. A Glance Ahead Individual city assessment Improve global flood and landslide hazard data Improve global loss data Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007

17. Thank you. Henrike Brecht henrike@hurricane.lsu.edu Emergency Management Higher Education Conference, June 7, 2007