HAZARD - E X PO S U R E -

B I LIT Y F RA M E W O R K F OR
VULNERA
SA S T E R R IS K R ED UC T IO N
DI
 VISION
Cagayan State University is a world class
university in the arts, culture, agriculture,
and natural sciences as well as in
technological and professional fields.
 MISSION
Cagayan State University shall produce globally
competent graduates through excellent instruction,
innovative and creative research, responsive public
service and productive industry and community
engagement.
HAZARD
A hazard is a harmful phenomena, substance, human activity, or
condition that has the potential to cause death, injury, or other
negative health consequences, property damage, loss of livelihoods
and services, social and economic disruption, or environmental
damage.
Natural hazards, as well as linked environmental and technical
hazards and risks, are of concern to catastrophe risk reduction. such
dangers can come from a number of geological, meteorological,
hydrological, oceanographic, biological, and technological factors,
which can sometimes interact. hazards are quantified in
technological contexts by the likelihood of occurrence of varying
intensities for distinct places, as indicated by historical data or
scientific analysis.
CLASSIFICATION OF HAZARDS
1.) BIOLOGICAL HAZARDS- are of organic origin or conveyed by biological
vectors, including pathogenic microorganisms, toxins and bioactive
substances. examples are bacteria, viruses or parasites, as well as venomous
wildlife and insects, poisonous plants and mosquitoes carrying disease-
causing agents. an example of a biological hazard:
 a room, a bar and a classroom: how the coronavirus is spread through th
e air
• ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARDS may include chemical, natural and biological hazards. they can be created
by environmental degradation or physical or chemical pollution in the air, water and soil. however, many
of the processes and phenomena that fall into this category may be termed drivers of hazard and risk
rather than hazards in themselves, such as soil degradation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, salinization
and sea-level rise. an example of an environmental hazard: 
sea level rise may erode development in Africa

• GEOLOGICAL OR GEOPHYSICAL HAZARDS originate from internal earth processes. examples are

earthquakes, volcanic activity and emissions, and related geophysical processes such as mass
movements, landslides, rockslides, surface collapses and debris or mud flows.
hydrometeorological factors are important contributors to some of these processes. tsunamis
are difficult to categorize: although they are triggered by undersea earthquakes and other
geological events, they essentially become an oceanic process that is manifested as a coastal
water-related hazard. an example of a geological hazard: china: cascading down the mountain
• HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL HAZARDS are of atmospheric, hydrological or oceanographic origin.
examples are tropical cyclones (also known as typhoons and hurricanes); floods, including flash
floods; drought; heatwaves and cold spells; and coastal storm surges. hydrometeorological
conditions may also be a factor in other hazards such as landslides, wildland fires, locust plagues,
epidemics and in the transport and dispersal of toxic substances and volcanic eruption material.
an example of a hydrometeorological hazard: 
climate change causes landfalling hurricanes to stay stronger for longer

• TECHNOLOGICAL HAZARDS originate from technological or industrial conditions, dangerous

procedures, infrastructure failures or specific human activities. examples include industrial
pollution, nuclear radiation, toxic wastes, dam failures, transport accidents, factory explosions,
fires and chemical spills. technological hazards also may arise directly as a result of the impacts of
a natural hazard event. an example of a technological hazard: 
we must not wait for the next ammonium nitrate blast - solutions exist to improve safety
CAN WE REDUCE THE HAZARD?
•mitigation measures include engineering techniques and hazard-resistant construction as well as improved
environmental and social policies and public awareness. it should be noted that, in climate change policy, 
“mitigation” is defined differently, and is the term used for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that
are the source of climate change.
•improving our knowledge of hazards and conducting hazard assessments can help us to locate and, in the case
of some hazards, anticipate over different time-periods when these might occur. anticipation ranges from
probabilistic analysis of long-term hazard occurrence, to the monthly, daily or even hourly detection and
monitoring of hazards, in order to inform early warning systems (ews).
•effective ews include four components: (1) detection, monitoring and forecasting of the hazards; (2) analysis
of the risks involved; (3) dissemination of timely and authoritative warnings; and (4) activation of emergency
preparedness and response plans. these need to be coordinated across many agencies at the national and
community levels for the system to work - failure in one component, or lack of coordination, can lead to the
failure of the whole.
EXPOSURE
• Exposure refers to people, property, systems, or other elements present in
hazard zones that are thereby subject to potential losses.

• While the literature and common usage often mistakenly combine exposure
and vulnerability, they are distinct. exposure is a necessary, but not
sufficient, determinant of risk. it is possible to be exposed but not vulnerable
(for example by living in a floodplain but having sufficient means to modify
building structure and behaviour to mitigate potential loss). however, to be
vulnerable to an extreme event, it is necessary to also be exposed.
• Exposure information is about the location and characteristics, or attributes, of
each of the elements and is therefore about what is at risk. this information
feeds into a natural hazard risk analysis to identify what elements at risk are in
the location, and enough information about each of the elements to help
understand how they are likely to behave when subjected to natural and
artificial hazards.

• Understanding what is exposed to a hazard event through readily available,

comprehensive and consistent national exposure information allows the
australian government, state and territory jurisdictions and emergency
management and planning agencies to make informed, evidence-based
decisions to prepare, respond and recover from any events.
VULNERABILITY
• Vulnerability refers to the characteristics and circumstances of a community,
system or asset that make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.

• There are many aspects of vulnerability, arising from various physical, social,
economic, and environmental factors. examples may include poor design and
construction of buildings, inadequate protection of assets, lack of public
information and awareness, limited official recognition of risks and
preparedness measures, and disregard for wise environmental management.
vulnerability varies significantly within a community and over time.
THREE AREAS OF VULNERABILITY
PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY is the potential for physical impact on the built environment,
infrastructure or population. information on the vulnerability of buildings and
infrastructure has been developed in countries such as the united states and in
europe, but different building techniques, standards and materials adopted in
australia require significant model calibration and testing under australian conditions.
Vulnerability models of people to physical injury, known as casualty models, have also
been developed internationally based primarily on empirical data linking the
likelihood of occupants being injured or killed in the event of building damage or
failure.
SOCIAL VULNERABILITY is nested in that the losses of an individual can impact on the
whole household, and the losses of a household can affect a whole community.
community can be viewed as either a contained geographic area, such as a town or
neighbourhood, or a group of spatially dispersed individuals who meet for a
collective purpose, such as a sporting team or theatre group.
Social vulnerability is complex-just as people are complex-and ongoing research,
usually conducted as post-disaster surveys, tries to understand the interaction of
factors that influence social losses. However, a number of factors are understood to
play a part:
• Demographics and socio-economic statistics, such as age, disability status, income and motor
vehicle ownership. these factors are often needed for operational needs in the response phase of
disasters and are easily measured quantitatively through the census and other datasets;

• Social capital: the social networks and resources that people can call upon to help in times of
crisis. friends, family and neighbours play an important role in all areas of the hazard cycle from
warnings, to evacuation, to support in recovery. some data is available for quantitative analysis, but
the gaps need to be met with qualitative analysis;

• Risk perception: the household's understanding of whether the hazard will happen to them, and
what the impacts of the hazard will be. an appropriate perception of the risk is required before
households will prepare for and respond to a hazard. warnings will be ignored if the household
does not think that the hazard will happen to them personally. risk perception is usually studied
qualitatively, but people often behave differently during a disaster than how they said they would
before the disaster, so quantitative post-disaster studies of behaviour are also used;
•Health and mental health: people with poor health or
mental health issues are at much greater risk of harm or
death when a hazard occurs. conversely, poor health and
mental health are common outcomes of disasters in
previously healthy people. there is currently little
quantitative data available for the small areas required for
social vulnerability assessment
SYSTEM VULNERABILTY
Critical infrastructure facilities are made up of many different components that
work together to deliver services to communities. these can be electric power
stations, water treatment plants or telecommunication hubs. some components
might be more vulnerable to hazard exposure than others. some might be more
critical to the functions of the facility, could be a more costly component or
require longer lead time to restore. the susceptibility of a critical infrastructure
facility to severe hazard in terms of damage and service disruption is called
system vulnerability.
VULNERABILITY FRAMEWORK
•VULNERABILITY FRAMEWORK is guided by the need to provide a template suitable for “reduced-
form” analysis yet inclusive of the larger systemic character of the problem. the framework is
not explanatory but provides the broad classes of components and linkages that comprise a
coupled system's vulnerability to hazards. the basic architecture (fig. 3) consists of: (i) linkages
to the broader human and biophysical (environmental) conditions and processes operating on
the coupled system in question; (ii) perturbations and stressors/stress that emerge from these
conditions and processes; and (iii) the coupled human–environment system of concern in which
vulnerability resides, including exposure and responses (i.e., coping, impacts, adjustments, and
adaptations). these elements are interactive and scale dependent, such that analysis is affected
by the way in which the coupled system is conceptualized and bounded for study.
The human–environment conditions of the system determine its sensitivity to any set of exposures.
these conditions include both social and biophysical capital that influences the existing coping
mechanisms, which take effect as the impacts of the exposure are experienced, as well as those
coping mechanisms adjusted or created because of the experience. for the human subsystem, these
mechanisms may be individual or autonomous action and/or policy-directed changes. importantly,
the social and biophysical responses or coping mechanisms influence and feed back to affect each
other, so that a response in the human subsystem could make the biophysical subsystem more or less
able to cope, and vise versa. in some cases, coping mechanisms per se give way to adaptation,
significant system-wide changes in the human–environment conditions. the responses, whether
autonomous action or planned, public or private, individual or institutional, tactical or strategic,
short- or long-term, anticipatory or reactive in kind, and their outcomes collectively determine the
resilience of the coupled system and may transcend the system or location of analysis, affecting other
scalar dimensions of the problem with potential feedback of the coupled system in question.
The framework illustrates the complexity and interactions involved in
vulnerability analysis, drawing attention to the array of factors and linkages that
potentially affect the vulnerability of the coupled human–environment system in
a place. its systemic qualities are open to left–right (hazards–consequences) or
right–left (consequences–hazards) application, depending on the interest and
aims of the user, as illustrated in the case studies of turner et al. (12), however,
different vulnerabilities in the system may be revealed by the direction of the
analysis taken.
DISASTER RISK MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK