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The danger of mapping risk from multiple natural hazards

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Abstract

In recent decades, society has been greatly affected by natural disasters (e.g. floods, droughts, earthquakes), and losses and effects caused by these disasters have been increasing. Conventionally, risk assessment focuses on individual hazards, but the importance of addressing multiple hazards is now recognised. Two approaches exist to assess risk from multiple hazards: the risk index (addressing hazards, and the exposure and vulnerability of people or property at risk) and the mathematical statistics method (which integrates observations of past losses attributed to each hazard type). These approaches have not previously been compared. Our application of both to China clearly illustrates their inconsistency. For example, from 31 Chinese provinces assessed for multi-hazard risk, Gansu and Sichuan provinces are at low risk of life loss with the risk index approach, but high risk using the mathematical statistics approach. Similarly, Tibet is identified as being at almost the highest risk of economic loss using the risk index, but lowest risk under the mathematical statistics approach. Such inconsistency should be recognised if risk is to be managed effectively, whilst the practice of multi-hazard risk assessment needs to incorporate the relative advantages of both approaches.

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Notes

  1. Entropy measures the amount of useful information in the indicator provided. When the difference in one indicator between different assessment units is small, the entropy is great; it illustrates that this indicator provides less useful information, and the weight of this indicator should be set correspondingly small. On the other hand, if the difference is large and the entropy is small, the weight would be big.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Baoyin Liu & Yim Ling Siu

  2. School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Gordon Mitchell

  3. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wei Xu

Authors
  1. Baoyin Liu
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  2. Yim Ling Siu
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  3. Gordon Mitchell
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  4. Wei Xu
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Correspondence to Yim Ling Siu.

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Liu, B., Siu, Y.L., Mitchell, G. et al. The danger of mapping risk from multiple natural hazards. Nat Hazards 82, 139–153 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2184-5

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