Development and Use of Natural Hazard Vulnerability-Assessment Techniques in the Americas

Sufficient knowledge, experience, and expertise exist to warrant a continuous, systematic, and critical review of natural hazard vulnerability-assessment techniques ~VAT! and their applications. This position is a reflection of the supply side of natural hazard disaster theory and practice. Academic, technical, scientific, as well as economic and social science professionals are showing increased interest in examining and explaining the specifics of risk associated with natural hazard phenomena. Surely, this is due in part to society’s increased awareness of risk from seemingly greater and more dangerous sources of peril. However, it also reflects a decades-old evolution of curiosity and concern about the response of populations and their physical, economic, and social infrastructure to atmospheric, hydrologic, and geologic events. There is a demand side to the position as well. Notable are the increasing losses, litigation, language, and lamentations related to natural hazard events. Economic losses and the number of persons affected, but not killed, due to natural hazard events are increasing throughout the Western Hemisphere. This reflects unresolved risk–much of which has been generated by development actions. It is also taking place in the face of seemingly boundless development opportunities to tie together economies and thus societies with their social, political, institutional, scientific, and technical underpinnings. In the absence of a global threat of assured mutual destruction ~such as in the case of nuclear war!, risks due to natural hazard events that distinguish between societies or nations ~indeed the lack of catastrophic risks that give advantage to some societies or nations, or portions thereof! are worth recognizing. For some, risk management of societies and nations is the defining factor in development. This special issue of the Natural Hazards Review, and indeed the NHR as a publication, is part of a review of natural hazard VAT. Natural hazard VAT development, application, and case study preparation helps to fill a void where a broader and deeper set of explorations and experiences are impacting, if not conditioning, the natural hazard vulnerability-assessment agenda in America in an increasingly interconnected way. The characteristics of the techniques include hazard focus, geographical and sector focus, subject and purpose of the vulnerability assessment, and input and output parameters. Regarding the natural hazard focus, there is a tradition of concentrating on earthquake and flood hazards, each sponsored by their associated scientific and technical communities, and together representing the vast majority of all losses in America over the past several decades. Focusing on earthquakes puts an emphasis on catastrophic loss. The resulting risk-management solutions are generally the responsibility of the individual vulnerable entity given that hazard modification and hazard avoidance are often not vi-