On rigour in science The extent to which the risk information

pro-duced since the adoption of the HFA is really in-forming development is not well known. Even within the disaster risk management communi-ty, new scientific information is not applied con-sistently.

“. . . In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Prov-ince occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time,

those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds produced a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The follow-ing Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.” ¹¹

In principle, risk information should provide a critical foundation for raising risk awareness and for informing disaster risk management pol-icies, practices, investments and measures from the local to the global level, including financial

Box 7.8 A policy-maker’s view of understanding risk

A recent initiative towards “Building capacities for increased public investment in integrated climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction” that will span around 40 countries by the end of 2015 helps countries understand and manage disaster risk in a uniquely comprehensive manner.¹⁰ The UNISDR-led and European Commission-supported initiative, in partnership with several international agencies and academic institu-tions, supports countries through a full package approach for disaster loss accounting, probabilistic risk assessment, economic analysis and policy development.

For example, in Mauritius, a total of 1,105 data cards on disaster loss in 1980-2013 were registered, with total economic losses estimated at US$59 million. Of these losses, 82 per cent were found to be from cyclones alone. The following probabilistic risk assessment therefore calculated the average annual loss and probable maximum loss for tropical cyclonic wind, which were estimated at US$87 million (AAL) and U$1.7 billion (PML) for a 100-year return period.

While these numbers highlighted the need to reduce tropical cyclone risk, in themselves they did not provide any policy guidance. Therefore, a thorough policy review and economic analysis were implemented, and it was found that the country would face difficulties in managing losses from cyclones and earthquakes with return periods of only 62 to 87 years. This pointed to the need for Mauritius to invest in both disaster risk reduction as well as risk financing mechanisms, including insurance.

Probabilistic cost-benefit analyses were then conducted to support concrete and specific decision-making, for example on retrofitting of housing, and a further review of the public finance systems was undertaken. As a result, the government found that there were significant gaps in terms of a coherent risk-sensitive invest-ment policy across all relevant sectors, in particular for critical infrastructure, and that contingency financ-ing mechanisms were underdeveloped. Examinfinanc-ing the disaster loss and risk information from the perspective of policy-makers, especially financial planners, in Mauritius, highlighted the importance of a linked approach to disaster risk reduction and resulted in concrete recommendations from the Ministry of Finance.

(Source: UNISDR. For more details, see Annex 3.)

applications to transfer risk and contingency plans to deal with possible disasters.

Globally, risk information should inform interna-tional agreements and policies on development priorities. In the insurance sector, the quanti-fication of disaster risk is essential given that the solvency of most non-life insurance compa-nies is strongly influenced by their exposure to catastrophe risk. Through their finance or plan-ning ministries, governments should be using risk information to inform public investment and to assess their fiscal resilience to large disas-ters (UNISDR, 2011a). In the construction sec-tor, quantifying the potential hazard expected in the lifetime of a building, bridge, or critical facil-ity should be driving the creation and modifica-tion of building codes. In the land-use and urban planning sectors, an analysis of flood risk, for example, should be driving investment in flood protection, informing zoning changes and pos-sibly leading to changes in insurance pricing (GFDRR, 2014a). In hazard-exposed communities, risk information should be underpinning local-level disaster risk management initiatives. Final-ly, in the private and financial sectors, it should be informing not only business continuity plan-ning but also corporate planplan-ning, investment and risk management (UNISDR, 2013a).

In practice, however, and as the short story by Jorge Luis Borges cautions, the burgeoning risk assessment community would appear to be mak-ing greater investments in increasmak-ing the accu-racy and rigour of risk models and assessments than in developing understandable and action-able information that responds to the needs of users.

It is unclear how much of the risk information that has been produced since the adoption of the HFA is really seeping and spilling out of that community of practice into sector and territorial development or even into the mainstream disas-ter risk management sector (CDKN, 2014). In fact,

the exponential growth of risk information has the effect of creating an elaborate play of reflec-tions in a room full of mirrors. Inside the commu-nity of practice, there would seem to be growing opportunities to produce more and better risk information. Seen from outside the room, how-ever, disaster risk information is still perceived as an exotic commodity. Outside of the insur-ance industry, cases where risk information has become fully integrated into decision-making are still the exception rather than the rule (Box 7.9).

There appear to be a number of instrumen-tal reasons for this disconnect. Risk informa-tion produced by the insurance and catastrophe modelling industry is still largely retained as intellectual property within each company and is rarely accessible to governments, businesses or households. The information is based on propri-etary models, and even if the results were made available, it might be unclear how the data was transformed and what assumptions were made to generate risk estimates.

The predominant academic culture of publica-tion in scientific journals is likewise an obstacle to accessing risk information. For many universi-ty-based risk modellers and researchers, publica-tion becomes an end in itself rather than a means of opening the results for application and dissem-ination. Given that scientific journals are usually only read by other scientists, this creates a closed circuit. The fact that so much published scientif-ic literature is in English further removes it from application in non-English speaking countries.

Insufficient emphasis has been placed on mak-ing fundamental data sets generated through the risk assessment process more open and acces-sible for reuse and repurposing, meaning that resources are wasted through the repetitive cre-ation of the same data sets (GFDRR, 2014a).

Hazard and risk assessments tend to be driven by well-intentioned science and engineering experts

( Source: Salgado et al., 2014a and 2014b.)

Relative AAL loss distribution for the building stock of Manizales

Box 7.9 Risk assessment informing a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy in Manizales, Colombia

In Manizales, Colombia, a full set of probabilistic risk assessments were carried out to devel-op a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy. This included retrofitting existing structures, updating a municipal earthquake insurance scheme and performing a cost-bene-fit analysis of structural risk reduction measures and land-use planning. Probabilistic seismic hazard assessment was used to calibrate the national earthquake building code to local seis-mic seis-micro-zones for both building stock and the water and sewage network.

Flood hazard for the Chinchiná basin was assessed using 30 years of rainfall data. Landslide risk analysis based on detailed information about land use, topography and geological information was used to support urban planning applications.

In addition, probabilistic volcanic ash hazard was analysed for the Ruiz Volcano located 30 km south-east of Manizales.

Ultimately, the Manizales voluntary municipal insurance scheme was based on this multi-hazard risk assess-ment. In this innovative scheme, middle and high-income groups underwrite policies, while low-income homeowners are subsidized by other homeowners and the local government, which acts as an intermediary.

Volcanic ash thickness hazard map (m)

rather than by the end-users and decision-mak-ers who need access to targeted information in different formats. All too often, risk information is driven by supply rather than demand, meaning that even when decision-makers are aware that they require risk information, it is often not avail-able in a usavail-able form.

Finance ministers, for example, might be inter-ested in metrics such as annual average loss

(AAL) or probable maximum loss (PML) in order to estimate the potential fiscal impact of disasters or the costs and benefits of investing in disaster risk reduction. They need numbers, not maps. In contrast, planners preparing local land-use or zoning plans will require hazard and risk maps rather than numbers (GFDRR, 2014a). Global risk indices or assessments are useful for comparing risk levels across countries but are too coarse-grained to inform national and local planning. In

any case, decision-makers may not understand the uncertainties inherent in modelling. A risk model can produce very precise results. It may show, for example, that a 1-in-100-year flood will affect 388,123 people. In reality, however, the accuracy of the model and input data may pro-vide only an estimate of the order of magnitude.

At the same time, given the continued focus on managing disasters rather than disaster risk, demand for risk information from governments may be weak. Many risk assessments are one-off projects, particularly in the context of post-disas-ter recovery operations, and even the maintenance of national disaster loss databases faces sustain-ability issues (Wirtz et al., 2014; Gall et al., 2014).

While international organizations have supported risk assessments in many high-risk, low-income contexts (GFDRR, 2014a), these assessments are rarely appropriated by national institutions and seldom contribute to risk awareness in the coun-try, simply because the underlying research infra-structure to sustain such efforts does not exist (Gall et al., 2014b). The capacity to produce and use risk information varies enormously from country to country. Unsurprisingly, the HFA Monitor high-lights that high-income countries with strong sci-entific and technical communities have been able to make significant progress in monitoring and forecasting hazards and developing national and local risk assessments, whereas many low-income countries simply do not have the capacities to do so. As such, the coverage of risk information is patchy from a geographical perspective, respond-ing more to project opportunities than to real needs. And even when risk information is available in national institutions, mechanisms to ensure that the information is available and usable at the local level are often missing, especially given the weak capacity of most local governments outside of major cities (CDKN, 2014).

Linked open data, social media and crowdsourc-ing could potentially bridge this gap. But there

remain tensions between data as a power source, as an income generator and as a social good. Legal obstacles often remain regarding the extent to which proprietary data needs to be transformed to become free and open (GFDRR, 2014a).

Another problem identified by the HFA Monitor is the absence of agreed standards or normalized approaches. This means that large volumes of studies and research carried out by universities, research institutions and others at the nation-al level do not provide standardized results. In Padang, Indonesia, for example, no less than twelve different tsunami risk assessments were carried out, each producing different results (Løvholt et al., 2014). In many other tsunami-prone locations, not a single detailed assessment has been carried out.

Shared language, terminology and translation are other barriers to sharing and using risk infor-mation. While international efforts under UNIS-DR and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have developed standard termi-nologies, words such as vulnerability, resilience and mitigation are used in widely differing ways in different communities. When such words are translated into other languages, this divergence multiplies even further. In practice, national meteorological and geological institutions are rarely integrated and frequently use different concepts and methods to assess risk.

This makes multi-hazard assessment particularly challenging. Multiple or concatenated risks from cascading and technological hazards are increas-ingly common, meaning that a single-hazard risk assessment is often not relevant to the decision-makers responsible for broader risk manage-ment. Moreover, failing to consider the full risk spectrum can actually increase risk. For exam-ple, heavy concrete structures with a ground-level soft story for parking can protect against cyclone wind, but can be deadly in an earthquake (GFDRR, 2014a).

Given these challenges, there are relatively few contexts (Box 7.10) where decision-makers have successfully incorporated risk information into day-to-day planning, regulation and decision-making. Risk knowledge implies an appropriation of risk information by society in a way that facil-itates risk management. From that perspective, the increased production of risk information dur-ing the HFA has not necessarily led to greater risk knowledge nor to improved risk management (Gall et al., 2014b). The growing supply of increas-ingly sophisticated and accurate risk information remains an exotic commodity which is still large-ly divorced from mainstream social, economic and territorial concerns. Like the cartographers described by Jorge Luis Borges, modern-day risk modellers are still too often disconnected from the needs of their potential users.

7.9

The role of social and economic constraints and opportunities facing households, businesses or governments has to become more central to the understanding of risk and to choices of disaster risk management strategies.

Experience has shown that a purely techni-cal assessment of risk, however sophisticated and cutting-edge, is by itself unlikely to trigger actions that reduce risk. Successful risk assess-ments produce information that is targeted, authoritative, understandable, and usable.

For example, the Build Back Better campaign led by the government of Indonesia in the aftermath

Box 7.10 Turning risk data into applicable risk knowledge

In Peru, all hazard information from the national seismic hazard model is being integrated into the National Public Investment System (Sistema Nacional de Inversión Pública) database, which facilitates the sharing of findings with the scientific community, government authorities and the general public. The findings of a seis-mic probabilistic risk assessment carried out for 1,540 schools and 42 hospitals in Lima and Callao are being used by the Ministry of Education to complement the countrywide infrastructure census and to design the National School Infrastructure Plan (GFDRR, 2014a; AIFDR, 2013).

The earthquake, tsunami, and volcanic hazard modelling activities of the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction have increased government capacity to understand the country’s hazard risk profile, and these gains have in turn informed significant policy directives at the national level, such as the 2012 Indone-sian Presidential Master Plan for Tsunami Disaster Risk Reduction (GFDRR, 2014a).

As early as 1987, France adopted a law that grants every citizen the right to information on their exposure to major risks (Government of France, 2004), on foreseeable damage, on possible preventive measures to reduce vulnerability, and on protection and relief support available from the government in the case of an emergency. Since 1990, local authorities have been obliged to provide the information online (Government of France, 1990).

Since 2009, the international NGO ACTED has been working closely with the Government of Uganda to man-age the Karamoja Drought Early Warning System (DEWS). By collecting and monitoring data on key indica-tors, this system allows drought prediction across Karamoja, a region prone to cyclical droughts. Monthly drought bulletins alert communities, districts and development partners of the risk of drought and suggest preparedness measures to be initiated (ACTED, 2012).

In Colombia, the provision of risk information is now a legal obligation under which the authorities are accountable for keeping all citizens and residents fully informed about levels of disaster risk, disaster man-agement, rehabilitation and construction efforts, as well as all related funding received, managed and deliv-ered (Government of Colombia, 2012).

of the Padang earthquake in 2009 demonstrated conclusively that well-targeted education and the communication of risk information can increase awareness of hazards and their potential impacts (GFDRR, 2014a). However, the campaign’s key assumption—that increased awareness would lead the West Sumatra population to invest in safer building—turned out to be false. In fact, those living in the worst-affected areas demon-strated higher resistance to change than those in less-affected areas, reflecting their higher expo-sure to other risks and hence greater constraints on change. The influence of the earthquake on safe building practices seemed to be limited to those who had gone through a traumatic first-hand experience during the earthquake, such as being trapped or injured by falling debris.

While risk can be objectivized through metrics such as annual average loss (AAL) or probable maximum loss (PML) or through maps, these met-rics only become useful if they are socially appro-priated. Given that risk is socially constructed, this is a prerequisite for a transformation in how the social and economic constraints and

opportunities facing households, business-es or governments are valued. What is consid-ered acceptable or unacceptable risk, or what is an optimum strategy for risk management can only be understood in the relationship between the stakeholders and these opportunities and constraints.

Local assessments of everyday and disaster risks, for example, show how the prevalence of non-physical hazards and of small-scale recurrent events is part of an undifferentiated multi-threat environment (Figures 7.5 and 7.6). They also show how households of different income levels have very different perceptions of risk.

Not only risk but also the production of risk infor-mation is socially constructed. Beyond the instru-mental barriers to its use (described in detail in Section 7.8), risk information so often fails to trigger changes in how risk is managed precisely because disaster risk is presented as an objective externality that can be measured and reduced rather than only one of a number of variables in a complex social, economic, political and cultur-al web of constraints and opportunities (UNISDR, 2011a). Risk then becomes technical, neutral and objective, delinked from its underlying drivers.

Figure 7.5 High-priority threats as reported by communities in ten countries in Latin America¹²

As a consequence, risk assessments, particu-larly in the private sector, have tended to focus more on hazards, exposure and physical vulnera-bility than social and economic vulneravulnera-bility and resilience, on extreme intensive risks rather than recurrent extensive risks, and on applications to protect development against external threats rather than applications to transform develop-ment. For example, these assessments are meant to identify optimum levels of protection for stra-tegic and critical infrastructure which is essen-tial to a country’s economy, to identify options for risk transfer and financial protection, or to inform preparedness and early warning for

As a consequence, risk assessments, particu-larly in the private sector, have tended to focus more on hazards, exposure and physical vulnera-bility than social and economic vulneravulnera-bility and resilience, on extreme intensive risks rather than recurrent extensive risks, and on applications to protect development against external threats rather than applications to transform develop-ment. For example, these assessments are meant to identify optimum levels of protection for stra-tegic and critical infrastructure which is essen-tial to a country’s economy, to identify options for risk transfer and financial protection, or to inform preparedness and early warning for