EXPOSURE

AND
VULNERABILITY
BY GROUP 1 - DRR Palermo, Brazil, Diez, Labrador, Terona, Ravalo, Magbanua
G1 EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

WHAT IS DISASTER RISK AND

WHAT CONSISTS IT?
According to the previous lesson, Disaster Risk is the product of potential
damage dealt by a hazard due to a certain vulnerability in the community.
It is consisted of 3 major factors: Hazard, Exposure, and Vulnerability. As
we are already familiar with Hazard, our group will be discussing the
remaining two factors, Exposure and Vulnerability.
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EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

RISK = HAZARD x EXPOSURE x VULNERABILITY

Figure 1: A Visual Representation of the relationship of Disaster Risk,

Hazard, Exposure, and Vulnerability
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EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

WHAT IS EXPOSURE?
The term “exposure” in disasters refers to one of the defining factors of a
disaster risk. Exposure covers all elements which are placed at risk from
natural or man-made hazard events such as human individuals, animals,
plants, houses, communities, infrastructures, facilities, buildings and other
properties and assets. It could also refer to the situation of those said elements
at risk due to being within the hazard-prone areas.
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EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

WHAT IS VULNERABILITY?
The term “vulnerability” in disasters refers to another of the major factors of
a disaster risk, defined as the characteristics and circumstances of a certain
community or a system that makes it susceptible or in danger of hazards. This
“vulnerability” can be determined by the physical, social, economic, and
environmental factors which makes us individuals, our community, our assets
and many others at risk of a hazard event.
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EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

WHAT IS VULNERABILITY?
Vulnerability is also referred to as “The potential to suffer harm or loss,
related to the capacity to anticipate a hazard, cope with it, resist it and recover
from its impact. Both vulnerability and its antithesis, resilience, are
determined by physical, environmental, social, economic, political, cultural
and institutional factors,” according to the Prevention Consortium in 2007.
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EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

WHAT IS VULNERABILITY?
- Vulnerability is determined based on three aspects: exposure (at risk
property and population), resistance (measures done to prepare/prevent a
hazard), and resilience (ability to recover prior state). All of these three are
needed to know how vulnerable a community or system is to a hazard.
G1 EXPOSURE & VULNERABILITY

TYPES OF VULNERABILITY
PHYSICAL SOCIAL
VULNERABILITY VULNERABILITY

ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENTAL
VULNERABILITY VULNERABILITY
 PHYSICAL VULNERABILITY
• are caused by physical, mainly tangible, characteristics or aspects that
makes a certain area vulnerable
• these include remoteness of a certain settlement and the used materials,
design and the site area of infrastructures and housings
• it also includes demographic factors such as population density and age
of population (as denser populations places more individuals at risk,
and a population with many children and elderly are less mobile and
efficient)
 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY
• are caused by inability of people, organizations, and societies to
withstand adverse impacts of hazards
• it is linked to the well-being of the individuals of the society, and is
affected by many aspects such as: level of literacy and education of the
population, existence of peace and security, access to basic human
rights, good governance, social equity, positive traditional values,
customs and ideological beliefs, and overall organization systems
• low income populations are also affected by this because of lack of
funding for emergencies
 ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY
• are caused by the economic status of the individuals, communities and
nations
• this depends more on how much funds and resources a certain area or
population has that they can use in order to establish safety measures
and emergency measures against hazards
• poorer areas or populations tend to be more vulnerable because they
don’t have resources to build sturdy structures and put other
engineering measures in place to protect themselves from being
negatively impacted by disasters
 ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY
• is based on the current health of a certain area’s environment that is at
risk of a hazard
• causes vulnerability through natural resource depletion and degradation,
as well as the deterioration of the environment (caused by man-made
activities such as deforestation and others)
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THANK YOU

GROUP 1 - DRR Palermo, Brazil, Diez, Labrador, Terona, Ravalo, Magbanua