What is Emergency Risk?

Emergency risk is expressed as the likelihood of loss of life, injury or destruction and damage from a Emergency in a given period of time.

It is considered as a combination of:

1. Severity and frequency of a hazard
2. The number of people and assets exposed
3. Their vulnerability to the damage

Emergency Risk = Hazard + Exposure + Vulnerabilities

Relationship between Emergency Risk and Development

Emergency are an indicator to the failures in the developmental planning which leads the vulnerable society exposed to the hazard. This leads to the negative impact on the economy which makes the developmental strategy to take a backseat. In short, Emergency threaten development just as development creates Emergency risks.

Relationship between Emergency Risk and Poverty

Poverty is both a driver and consequence of Emergency risk as it is this specific criteria, which determines the most vulnerable populace in this decade. Poverty enhances the exposure of such groups to the hazardous impact of Emergency.

Hazards

A hazard is a potentially damaging physical event or human activity that may cause social and economic disruption, environmental degradation, loss of life or property damage. In simple words, a hazard is a threat while Emergency is an event, i.e., a consequence of a hazard. The location of natural hazards primarily depends on natural processes such as movement of tectonic plates and influence of weather systems, but anthropogenic processes such as urbanization, environmental degradation and climate change can also influence the location, frequency and intensity of natural hazards.

Exposure

Exposure is a situation of people, infrastructure, housing and other tangible human assets located in a hazard prone area. It is one of the defining component of Emergency risk. If a hazard occurs in an area of no exposure, then there is no risk. Exposure increases when people and economic assets become concentrated in the area exposed to hazards through the processes such as population growth, migration, urbanization and economic development. For instance many hazard prone areas such as coastlines and flood plains attract economic and urban development which increases the Emergency risk of storm surge and riverine flooding which increases the Emergency risk as more people and assets are exposed to the Emergency.

Vulnerability

Vulnerability can be defined as the conditions determined by physical, social, economic and environmental factors which increase the susceptibility of a community to the impact of hazards. Vulnerability is the human dimension of Emergency and is the result of various factors ranging from social, political, economic, cultural and environmental.

Emergency being an overarching phenomenon has the ability to impact the lives and livelihoods of the greater population. It involves disruption in the normal functioning of an economy which can be caused as a result of improper Emergency management policies and neglect of Emergency risk reduction strategies. It can, though having a region-specific occurrence, sometimes affect a particular section of the group, thus making it sector-specific.

This article deals with such specifications where the sector and its impacts can be clearly visible.