Assessment of disaster risks, financial vulnerabilities and the impact of disasters

This chapter provides an overview of the risk assessment practices of surveyed economies. It begins by outlining the importance of assessing and quantifying disaster risk and losses. This is followed by an overview of the various approaches to completing risk assessments, including scenario analysis and probabilistic risk assessment and modelling as well as approaches to assessing the indirect economic impact of disasters. Specific efforts to identify financial vulnerabilities in some economies are described. The following section describes efforts to collect and publish information on disaster losses, including in the private insurance sector. The chapter concludes with a discussion of common implementation challenges to comprehensive assessment of disaster risks, exposures, vulnerabilities and losses.